"The Golden Age of MMO's can't be experienced again." Shush you.

Is Darkfall a sandbox?

The problem is that you could make a similar argument for the Ford Model T. Hugely popular, one of the best selling cars ever, a large amount of nostalgia around it, and a representation of a simpler time when a lot of things we now take for granted did not matter.

Somebody could start a business making authentic Model T replicas today, and it would get a small following. It would be a niche market.

That isn’t a bad thing, but as I would not expect the roads to suddenly be flooded with Model T replicas, neither would I expect a real 1999 vintage MMO to be over run with customers. There would be some dedicated followers, some people who want just that sort of thing, but in the market today it would be a niche. Again, that isn’t a bad thing, and if it is what you want, you should support it.

And part of a “Golden Age” to me (and in the definition I just looked up) includes the sense of mass community, the “gotta have it!” enthusiasm, and a feel of newness and wonder. The great tasks of the golden age of MMOs, or maybe we should call it “the first golden age of MMOs” have been accomplished. Worlds were built, explored, conquered.

We can find new worlds, but it will never be the same. It will never be a “Golden Age” the way it was, not by simply trying to recreate the past. Something new will have to come.

Or such is my gut feeling on the subject.

I started playing MMORPGs. I am not insulted.

Having played WoW for a few hundred hours I was thinking: Wouldn’t a complete virtual world be fun. Where you can do trade, build houses, fight wars against other players .. ?

Over the years I learned that this wasn’t the way the guys at Blizzard were thinking. They were more busy with reconsidering the 150% crit heal.

Anyway, you are perfectly right that there’s so few people playing fantasy sandboxes, because there aren’t and fantasy sandboxes !!

And, btw, this is the only reason why there aren’t any: because there aren’t any. It’s the way of the modern games industry. When will they release Call of Duty 9 ?

On the bright side: Eventually somebody will make a AAA-fantasy sandbox and it will be a resounding success, because there’s no competition; nowhere. The market gap has the size of a small galaxy by now.

Darkfall was nowhere near a true sandbox, claiming predetermined citystones? That’s laughable. The last fantasy sandbox I remember was Shadowbane. It was a really fun game, it just couldn’t get the right level of polish down.

+10 points if you played Shadowbane
+100 points if you played on the server of, and remember the merchant city Tradewind.

@Wilhelm: Darkfall, yes and no. Many ways it is, but the catch is that I am more inclined to label it as a “FFA PvP” model. Decisions are made to cater to a PvP environment more than a sandbox environment. Other issues with Darkfall put it into the “vanguard” pile: A game that wants to be oldschool but makes a bazillion mistakes, thus invalidating the comparison.

I’m not saying recreate the past as much as I’m saying it’s not vaild to say games designed like UO, SWG, and DAOC don’t work when we haven’t had any games like that to judge.

What’s happening is people are seeing the success of the themepark and then saying because A is popular, B won’t be. Well, how is that known?

I played DAOC from release till WAR’s debut. I’ve been through that “Golden Age” and I have to agree with Wilhelm, above. There was a golden age, you can’t make it come back. Replicating it exactly wouldn’t fly today because the conditions were SO different compared to now. You have to adapt and adopt different needs and wants.

Honestly, I would love to see a much better spiritual squeal to DAOC. I haven’t seen anyone truly attempt it recently. RIFT, I hear is actually a good game and might approach the DAoC Frontier concept in the near future, but that’s my best hope. So I’ll agree, nobody has tried something close to DAoC but maybe at this point, one could argue there’s a good reason. It might not work anymore.

The first golden age is over. Welcome to the Silver age.

There’s some confusion. My fault.

I’m not saying bring back THAT EXACT golden age. I’m saying the golden age games/game types/ mechanics/ etc.

A spiritual successor to DAOC, as I would make it, would qualify. A lot more polish, updated graphics, but as close to those mechanics as possible.

We don’t see any isometric sandbox MMO’s or 3-faction frontier based PvP. People call that “golden age” but I consider those “good ideas”.

DAOC 2 please.

Clearly you can’t recreate original EverQuest to a T, with more polish and better graphics and expect it to succeed. The real trick will be to incorporate ideas from old and new. An old idea that should be used is NO instancing, ever. The closest thing you should ever want to get to is EVE’s psuedo-instances that other people can actually invade.

New ideas brought on from WoW and the like could be keeping your gear when you die, having auction houses and quests.

Another old idea, low levels players can gather items that high levels players can find useful, and don’t take this away down the road. It helps new players feel much more connected to the world. You can boost a high level player’s efficiency with these items, maybe requiring less of them, but this relationship, I think, is very important.

From what I’ve been told, “Darkfall” really was “UO in 3D”, and it did alright. It has it’s nich player base and putters along just fine.

A revised DAoC would be nice. In theory at least. I’m not even sure I need a whole lot to pull me back in these days. Maybe just a re-working of the frontier map and go with the RIFT model on classes, and I might be sold. I’m almost tempted to re-sub just to try it again for a couple months.

DAoC was a great game, but sadly it just wasn’t keeping up to today’s standards in terms of game play. WoW actually has changed drastically over the years, to the point where it’s almost like a completely different game now compared to release and I say for the better. Now if Mythic only had the funding to do that with DAoC. Imagine if you could just steal the class system of RIFT into DAoC and maybe reworked the maps again. How would that work?

@Keen: On the validity of game styles/play models, totally agree, and I don’t think they have to be niche games, at least if we take out the constant comparison to WoW.

And even within theme parks there is a very narrow view of “this is how it has to be.”

But a Golden Age just means something else to me, relative to how you put it in your post. The Wikipedia article “Golden age (metaphor)” has some good examples. They tend to be times when not only are huge strides made and great tasks accomplished, but when there is no conventional wisdom to guide people, no obvious right answer. They are times when there is no “you’re doing it wrong” and lots of “you’re doing what?”

WoW was the end of the golden age of MMOs imo, but that does not mean that there won’t be good things. The Golden Age of US TV was the 50s because of the people it attracted. When do we get somebody like Alfred Hitchcock doing network TV these days? But that doesn’t mean everything after 1960 was crap. But things became more formulaic. And so it is with MMOs. We now have a lot of MMOs out there and the tough part is finding one worth playing.

Vanguard is a superb MMO. The best I’ve played in a dozen years excepting only Everquest. That’s as it stands.

If it had actually been finished before launch and had then continued to be developed it would be the best MMO, period.

One of the main problems I see is the majority of mainstream MMO’s from this point on appear to be driven solely based on the WoW model.

Why? Most other gaming genres have evolved. Strat games are turn and real time. Within real time you have the more hero based models and the building models. FPS are all over the board. You have controlled maps like counter-strike and CoD, and then massive vehicle maps like BF. Some games, like Halo can even pull off both pretty well.

However, today’s MMO’s barely show any evolution. Why must we be forced into endless quests? Why not adventure and learn through trial and error? How about grouping out of necessity, at times? Why not make player based gear the standard anymore? Or at least an extremely viable alternative? What about something entirely revolutionary, like giving crafters the power to make unique items for duplication? Also, when did player housing become to difficult to tackle?

Seems like companies are just taking the easy way out. Good IP, with great graphics will sell enough to make money, but never be more than a 4 monther.

@Wilhelm: I would rather not use the term “golden age” but it’s the term being thrown around. I get it in comments on the blog, see it on Massively, see people on forums saying it, and listen to people talk to me about it.

We can’t bring back the golden age, but we can bring back the good ideas and make games like those from the golden age.

@Bhagpuss: I loved Vanguard. Graev and I reached level 40 or something like that and ended up stopping due to bugs/lack of content. I agree that had it been finished and not had the developer issues it would have been a powerhouse.

DAoC was kinda themeparky, just with the end-game more about PvP than PvE. Great game and all, but pretty themepark in a lot of important areas (character, zones, objectives, etc).

DF, as someone already mentioned, is UO in 3D for those who originally played UO. It’s far from perfect, but it does what it does (MMO PvP) better than any game out.

Why we don’t have a true, decently-funded PvE sandbox MMO, well, I can’t figure that one out either.

@SynCaine: DAOC was less themeparky before ToA and kinda themeparky after (reason many left), but not at all what today’s themeparks have become. But this isn’t about Themeparks or sandboxes. It’s about the games of yesterday vs. the games of today and the lack of “good ideas” being incorporated.

Having played both Darkfall and UO extensively, my opinion is that Darkfall is nowhere near a “3D version of UO”. Both are FFA PvP, both have similar inventory systems, a harsh death penalty, etc., but the differences to me are stark. The skill system of Darkfall vs. the UO one, the truly changable world in UO vs. Darkfall’s predetermined locations, the almost tangible yet unexplainable community feel going into a town in UO vs. Darkfall’s hallow shell feel… Again, my opinion.

Honestly will *#$&@! someone just design a good mmo with three factions in it? ack gadzeeks!

Oh I point out DAOC being a themepark to highlight how themepark PvP can work if it’s done right. Any themepark with two pre-set sides = fail, among the many other things DAOC got right any everyone else has gotten wrong. More than anything though, it was themepark because it did have very hard pre-set sides/zones/styles, but this worked great because of stuff like Realm pride and a set, known enemy. Sandbox titles don’t have those things, which (again, if done right) are pretty cool/important.

The frustrating thing about DF is that, in many ways, UO did a lot of the stuff DF is still trying to do better in 97. I still think overall it will get there, like how EVE took it’s sweet time in a lot of areas. At the core though, the combat is so good that, eventually, the rest will fall into place. Just wish it was sooner rather than later, but that’s the price of catering to a niche.

“Honestly will *#$&@! someone just design a good mmo with three factions in it? ack gadzeeks!”

Amen brother- even Planetside 2 has me interested for this very reason.

The Golden Age references is mostly nostalgia talking I believe – MMOs were brandnew when UO and later EQ came out. It was exciting and unpolished. I do believe that the new age “balanced” games are kind of boring…which is why they dont last longer than 3 months (if that).

In a sense, I think it will take a very special gaming experience to have the same new-ness feeling again…but I just dont believe that anyone will pull it off for a while…it will require a lot of resources to swim against the current and if there was someone who could do it…they shouldnt need our support meaning….I dont think a smaller outfit will be bale to pull it off…

Argorius, I started playing MMORPGs with WoW and I can’t await the return of this ‘golden Age’. Can’t really be nostalgia, though, can it ?

I don’t think that “theme park” is a sacred cow – we are well overdue for a more sandboxy game, and it’s more a failing of our game financing model than player desire that one has not arrived yet.

That said, my guess – you’re correct that I can’t mathematically prove this – is there is a large segment of the market that can or will never play a game that does not allow solo play. The people who spend 10 minutes at a time, go AFK with no warning because of life aggro, and still have a level 43 character in WoW 7 years later will not magically turn into group players no matter how well you implement your new golden age.

In that context, your comment that you would have supported Vanguard if it had been “finished” is telling. Having enough money is what lets developers launch games in an acceptable state, and writing off segments of the market (that I personally guess are large) will impact your development budget.

I have yet to experience a game that gave me the same feeling as when I played UO or AC1. Guess it has more to do with the communities of these games (generally more mature than today) than with game mechanics.

The truth of the matter is that we could have a 100% true to the original DAoC successor and it wouldn’t be anything new. It would just be something shiney. It wouldn’t give you this fresh feeling of the days of old. Sure, people would love it. It might even carve out more than a niche following. But it would still just be DAoC but a little more polished and a little prettier. So why not just play the original?

The market needs to move forward, not backwards. We learn from our past, we don’t try and relive it. That’s the wrong attitude. That traps you in an endless spiral of disappointment. The best to hope for is that some old, very good ideas are re-imagined with something fresh to make it interesting. Because I can tell you now.. I absolutely LOVED UO.. but I definitely wouldn’t relive it all over again. I’ve tried a few times and it never felt the same. It never will.

How can you say the market learned from the past when there are plenty of examples to the contrary.

Example:
WAR failed where DAOC succeeded. It was even the same company.

No, we definitely need to go back to some of these core ideals and good ideas and then move forward in a new direction. We can’t move forward from this corner/hole the market has dug itself into. Time to crawl out (go back) and then try again.

â€œHonestly will *#$&@! someone just design a good mmo with three factions in it? ack gadzeeks!â€

http://eatingbees.brokentoys.org/2011/06/20/somewhat-paraphrased/

In case anybody missed it…

Completely disagree. I understand what you are saying, but the problem you don’t seem to realize is this: You aren’t a mainstream fan. Of course someone could design a game that would be perfect to you, have everything you, keen, want. And that game would be a tiny niche game.

I mean, I am not saying the things you like are bad or anything, they are just not what millions and millions of MMO gamers want, they are what a vocal minority want. Such a game can certainly be made again, you are right in that it is certainly possible to do. It just won’t because there is no reason to make it.

“I can enjoy EQ today and forget the bad graphics or unpolished controls because itâ€™s a decade old. For everyone else, you canâ€™t fairly judge the game.”

This is the problem with your assessment of these titles – you take yourself as the objective viewpoint of what the game is and then invalidate all those who disagree as being subjective.

And then there is the argument of what the ‘true’ sandbox is. Darkfall was released as a sandbox. I’ve heard that Perpetuum aims to be a sandbox, haven’t haven’t tried it myself.

On top of which, at launch EQ was considered the themepark to UO’s sandbox.

Your particulary golden age of MMOs can’t be experienced again. Someone else will look back in 10 years time and consider now to be the golden age of MMOs. There will be a group for whom The Realm / Meridian 59 was the golden age. ‘Golden Age’ in these contexts are highly subjective.

In some general respect the Golden Age of video games is already upon us; at what other time could I have access to so many games, often at <$10 price points. Internet companies like Steam, D2D, and Impulse allow for unrivalled competition to an unlimited number of titles.

For the future I am looking forward to the evolution of the F2P model, which will awkwardly find its transition from a parasitic model that kills its hosts, to that of a symbiote that lives in harmony with its target Western audiences. I have been enjoying my trip back to Allods Online which has improved quite a bit, having eliminated many of the detrimental punitive game breaking mechanics that originally plagued it; Iâ€™ll have to see if my opinion still remains positive once I enter into the PvP realm though!

I am clearly biased. That’s the point. I saw the era of good ideas. I experienced it. You may dismiss what I say because I’m biased or you can look at it with common sense.

Example:
DAOC 3 realms with frontiers PvP model succeeded. Modern attempts are doing it differently have failed. No modern attempts at 3 realm frontier pvp.

That seems cut and dry to me. Guaranteed success? No, but you can’t say it won’t work today unless you try. Problem: No one does.

@ Baredil, I hadn’t seen that game or even thought of Sanya since she left EAMythic.

Thanks for the heads up, I’ll now be watching this title progress with froth coming out of my mouth. And maybe a twitch; a nervous, persistent twitch that causes said froth to lather my keyboard and/or monitor.

I agree with Keen 100% in his blog.

I also believe that a Good Old fashioned Sandbox game that harnessess all the good from the ‘golden age’ with a sprinkle of some traditional themepark elements such as leveling (albeit in a skill system instead of a class system), some easy to accomplish quests to drawn in some of the WoW age MMO players (but most quests would be exploration and discovery types and would reward more XP)

But the biggest thing I think a ‘golden age’ sandbox can implement is the themepark UI, combat system and ease of use. However the meat of the game would infer alot of traditional sandbox elements like exploration, crafting, House building, non instanced dungeons, in fact no instances what so ever as Ialways felt it broke immersion and detracted from sporadic and impromtu grouping to tackle tougher mobs.

The thing alot of the new age WoW MMO players think of when us old tiemrs mention sandbox is FFA, corpse looting and a dominance on PvP. Instead what they fail to understand is that the really great ‘golden age’ MMO’s implemented was a reason to play other then for the all mighty loot grind.

God what I wouldnt give for a DAoC + Asherons Call hybrid MMO utilyzing WoW UI/hotbar/tab target Combat system. But wih all the things necessary to create rich and diverse community building that the original golden age MMO’s succeeded in creating.

With the current market makeup I am not sure how easy it is going to be to get a Golden age. You want tons of Polish and New innovative ideas. Those two concepts do not really go hand in hand well. New ideas need to time to be worked out which normally leads to a lack of polish.

Early games could get a way with lack of Polish. The market is so saturated and competitive these days people will move on before the new Ideas are worked out. (

Amen, when you make posts like this i just want to hug and squeeze you…and then give out a beer 😛

I would also not bring back the exact same thing, but the ideas, hell yes. But it wonÂ´t happen any time soon or maybe not at all. Publishers bet their money in theme park mmos, because they know they will get the funding for them from investors “just look at wow blabla bullshit” i donÂ´t even blame the guys with the money, they are not gamers.

ItÂ´s a sad thing that today all we get are games, not online worlds, just ordinary online games, but what do you expect when publishers follow in the footsteps of WoW, a game where back then lead designer Kaplan himself stated in an interview that they made a game where people who solo can have fun and where itÂ´s not about the “social experiment”.

I hope some studio will break with this concept and will make a game thats actualy worth playing for more than just the next loot. But as i said, i donÂ´t see this happening anytime soon. MAYBE GW2 will be..different enough, we will see.

The only next big title, TOR, doesnÂ´t look very promising to me…

Its hard for me to agree with Keen on this one, when I know for a fact that those days when MMO’s were new and shiny, everything just seems better.

Highly biasing any kind of opinion through nostalgia and Rose tinted glasses.I mean I still think back to this day how much I enjoyed running around with my BLademaster in Emain Macha hunting down ALBS and MIDs in 1vs1 group fights.
My heart used to pump so hard and the excitement was electrifying.

First time I arena’d in WoW?….bleh.

Now why is that?

Well, I need more info on Prime Online where Sanyan is COmmunity Manager?….

Of course ArcheAge look promising.. but we’ll see.

I’ve dream that If I had enough money, I’d buy Vanguard from SOE and finish the product and sell it.. even if I have to F2P it..I’d do it LOTRO/DnD Turbine style.

Pfft…no sandbox MMOs in the last six years? Are you kidding me?

Darkfall
Mortal Online
Eve Online
Haven and Hearth
Wurm Online
Vanguard
Dawntide
Shores of Hazeron

Sandbox MMOs are certainly the exception to the norm, but they’re there if you look for them.

There’s a reason they call it the golden age, it’s the period where everything is new, challenging and with very few standouts.

The golden age of comics has come and gone. No one wants to see heroes giving kids live lessons, the art style, the closed stories.

The golden age of movies came and went. We don’t have operatic stages, huge musical sections or everyone speaking with a British accent. Instead we have action movies and comedies.

The golden age of cars is done. Huge behemoth gas-guzzling machines that would cost 4-5 times the cost of a current car. No AC, nearly everything is manual, no speed.

Society moves on and people look back and say “this is the point where we started”. The methods used back then worked back then but will not work now given people’s expectations. That’s life and people move on and enjoy what they have now or they stay stuck in the “it was better back then” mentality and are disgruntled with life.

Reintroduce ideas that have never been experienced by 99.99999% of the players in the market, create games with play styles that have never once been experienced since 2004, and see how easily the “golden age” is re-experienced.

One bazillionth of the MMO players played MMO’s before WoW. At this point, old would be new. Good ideas are not restricted to the past.

Oops, forgot one: Xsyon

@Lumin: I’ll go down the list.

Darkfall – Clarified in comments. Sandboxy, but mostly a PvP game over a true sandbox.

Mortal Online – Bombed beyond bombed.

EVE – Mentioned directly in the post.

Haven and Hearth – Fun game but not really in the same scope.

Wurm Online – Honestly, you could have listed Second Life and I would have thought more of it.

Vanguard – Not a sandbox. Addressed in the post.

Dawntide – Not released.

Shores of Hazeron – uhhh

I still feel good about my statement.

@40

Your original question:

“Besides, other than EVEâ€¦ can you point out ONE sandbox that has been released in the past six years? NO!”

I gave you several. I proved you wrong. I don’t give a damn whether or not you consider them true MMOs or whatever based on Keen’s personal litmus test.

They are MMOs plain and simple.

Will I ever feel the same way I did wandering into Ironforge without anyone holding my hand, looking around in wonder, and then taking that first Gryphon flight? That was my golden age.

I agree with some of the other posters…When something is so brand new to us it can be intoxicating.

There is no way a future release can duplicate it. But we can have just the same. We get older and our sense of wonder is replaced with cynicism oftentimes. MMOG’s continue to amaze me because they demand a degree of introspection.

Why do we play? The answer is different for all of us. What do we expect emotionally from our experience? Again, a million unique answers.

I honestly don’t know how much more sandbox you can get with games like Wurm, and Haven and Hearth. If you consider Eve to be “sandbox” then why not a game where you can harvest your own food, build your own towns, and make your own stuff from scratch?

Is not a sandbox mmo a game where you can mold the environment to your liking with hundreds of other characters? Is not a sandbox mmo one with few “quests” and few defined paths to take?

You and many other MMO bloggers are the Colin Cowherd of video games. Your vision is restricted to the top of the pack. You bitch and whine 24/7 about how we have no sandbox games anymore because you will only consider big budget games like WoW, Rifts, Eve, SWTOR and Guild Wars as real “MMOs”.

These “Golden Age” MMOs you hearken back to like UO, EQ, etc, all started with tiny budgets and tiny teams of developers pushing new, untested ideas. They didn’t start with a bank full of cash and giant marketing departments like companies today. If you’re not willing to give small-market MMOs a chance, they will NEVER take off and become big-market MMOs. Instead, you will continue to whine that the big boys won’t make what you want. Why should they? You continue to play them and shovel them your money for crappy, theme-park grindfests.

Frankly I’m tired of it.

WALL OF TEXT TO FOLLOW!

Just so we arenâ€™t arguing over semantics, I take â€œGolden Ageâ€ (GA) to mean a time period where a unique idea appears (or possibly reappears), and is remarkably popular as well as naturally accessible to a target audience (not necessarily within a large group; people talk about GAâ€™s within small communities of artists). I believe that a GA could occur; I can think of two major approaches that could support the emergence of a GA:

1) The current WoW model needs to be economically undermined for larger gaming companies to try alternative approaches.

2) It will most likely be initiated by the indies, next believed, and then proven, to be economically viable when scaled up to a mainstream audience.

It all comes down to profitability; although you might think this to be conspiratorial Keen, the large companies are there to earn as much profit as possible for their stockholders and employees. Imagine trying to convince a roomful of happy WoW (or Farmville for that matter) investors that you want to experiment with novel ideas that might spur on a new GA in gaming, but it would require demolishing and rebuilding from the ground up their already highly economically successful model (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiioSWljp-0&feature=related; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridicule). I think the first response might likely be â€œA GA for whom, readers of your blog or our financial consultants?â€ I believe that going to the big gaming companies and trying to convince them of your sensible ideas will likely be met with ridicule by the fat and complacent holders of the Kingâ€™s court.

That is where approach #1 comes in; cancel your WoW subscription and encourage other to do so also. You are trying to fight a gaming â€œwar on drugsâ€ by targeting the producers as opposed to the consumers, and we all know how well that has worked out (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/02/us-drugs-commission-idUSTRE7513XW20110602); perhaps you think that it would only be of a minor negative economic impact to get similar minded gamers to give up their WoW accounts, but to not do so is an admission of your status as a minority viewpoint and will not be considered a de facto standard for AAA gaming companyâ€™s financial well-being (as well as a hypocritical stance to take, feeding the same system that is poisoning your soul, typical of an addict mentality thoughâ€¦).

I can see no impetus for the AAAâ€™s to move from their current positions, but not all hope is lost. CEOâ€™s/investors may be willing to develop new games, or at least experiment with the inclusion of certain novel elements into successful existing ones, if they can see successful implementation in other games. This is where approach #2 comes in; the people with the true love for the field will have to be the maverick start ups. If they prove themselves successful, especially at scaling to larger markets then these ideas will likely be seized upon by the more forward thinking companies (or conversely bought out and shelved to maintain the existing status quo).

Support your indies; it has never been a cheaper time to do so! Perhaps some will emerge and retain their ideals, at least the ones that remained economically viable, and then you can take a new approach in addressing Blizzardâ€™s board of stockholders (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZKG555N6Rg)â€¦

Quotes I heartily agree with spawned from this thread:

â€œCompletely disagree. I understand what you are saying, but the problem you donâ€™t seem to realize is this: You arenâ€™t a mainstream fan. Of course someone could design a game that would be perfect to you, have everything you, Keen, want. And that game would be a tiny niche game.â€ â€“ But realize that this niche game could be the seed of a greater idea that could spreadâ€¦

â€œThe thing a lot of the new age WoW MMO players think of when us old timers mention sandbox is FFA, corpse looting and a dominance on PvP. Instead what they fail to understand is that the really great â€˜golden ageâ€™ MMOâ€™s implemented was a reason to play other than for the all mighty loot grind.â€ â€“ Winning players over with the fun factor more than the addictive token reward systemâ€¦

â€œThem: (List of things on which a big budget project simply canâ€™t take a chance.); Me: (weakly trying to be cool) Thatâ€™s all?; Them: Well, there are jetpacks.â€ (from the linked Sanya Weathers blog) â€“ An expression of despair where theory meets realityâ€¦

The last fantasy sandbox I remember was Shadowbane. It was a really fun game, it just couldnâ€™t get the right level of polish down.

Fantasy sandbox my ass. Gold grind worse than EQ. No content. Unpolished gameplay .And omfg sb.exe, lag, crashes, bugs ,exploits.

Have you ever tried manage a friggin workshop in sb. I had to resort to damn macros not to kill myself ordering yet another set of 100 swords (one by one btw) 99 of them which would turn out crap.

@ Max

“Fantasy sandbox my ass. Gold grind worse than EQ. No content. Unpolished gameplay .And omfg sb.exe, lag, crashes, bugs ,exploits.”

That’s actually kind of funny…because I think a lot of folks have precisely those kind of thoughts spring up when someone mentions sandbox.

The argumentative side of me also wants to ask exactly which of the attributes you mentioned are inconsistent with the concept of a fantasy sandbox MMO? Can they not have a gold grind? Can they not be unpolished or have bugs? Can they not lack content?

In my view, Shadowbane was a fantasy sandbox game for sure.

Thank you for reminding me about Haven and Hearth, back when I played it was one of the best mmo’s I’ve ever seen. Our town was glorious, I only left the game because I hit a roadblock due to the scarcity of metals in the version I was in.

It may be interesting if Keen (or someone) would layout their “vision” of the “perfect Sandbox MMO” using WoW as the template.

Since WoW is played by so many folks it may clarify what so many folks have missed. I also believe the “world” in Wow is fantastic and most negatives surround the game play, not the environment.

So if you were given the WoW code to build your perfect MMO what would it be like?

I just couldn’t use WoW. I’ve talked about my perfect MMO before.

DAOC meets UO meets SWG.

Perfect balance of PvP, “stuff to do” and world feel. All skill based (no levels) via SWG’s tiered skill trees (you gain exp in what you use and spend that exp on skillups).

Here’s a link to my fantasy sandbox MMO post from ’09.
https://www.keenandgraev.com/?p=3092

I missed that article…I’d like to read it.

thanks

In my view, Shadowbane was a fantasy sandbox game for sure.

Ok. It was a very crappy and so buggy that it was unplayble fantasy sandbox MMO. Alganon was a crappy themepark MMO. Both games sucked end of story.

There were examples of good sandbox MMO: UO , SWG. The first is just very dated now and actual gameplay is crap by today standards

The SWG had all the sandboxy part quite all right (far from perfect mind you). But everything else was “meh”. Raph picked the crafters for his focus group and surprise surprise he got crafters MMO. He ignored everyone more interested in combat/pvp aspect -and surprise surprise all those parts were absolute abominations.

Eve has shitty gameplay all over again.

Take EvE, put the x series combat in (or black prophecy one) – that would be example of sandbox with good gameplay.

@49 Good article Keen. I do have a question for you “GoldMO’s”.

What was end game like in Golden MMOs? I know folks beyotch about endgame gear treadmills, but what makes you want to log everyday? I know PvP would for me, but what else? Running a store? Looking for new resources?

Thanks

Like I said in a previous comment, I don’t like to consider it a golden age. I think, as pointed out by several above, the term golden age has the wrong meaning behind it.

I consider it a time when good, diverse, ideas were plentiful. So with that clarified, yes to all of your points.

I loved owning a store. I loved looking for new and rare resources that would dynamically change around the world. I loved logging in to participate in dynamic pvp with territory that would change hands and have a meaningful reason to protect. I logged in to participate in a realm (faction) that knew each other because we were brothers and sisters in arms. We fought to keep our lands and our relics and wanted to take the enemy’s.

None of the games I enjoyed those things in had gear treadmills.

I think a PvP based end game that involved “the world” would be right up my alley.

I wish I did more in DAoC other then sell arrows. But damnit if you needed good arrows, you went to HowdyDoody! ahahhaah.

I can see you being the DAOC crafter type. I had a guy I went to for all of my weapons and armor and another for all of my spellcrafting.

Keen wish you would do some research on Asherons Call if you’ve never played it because it sounds like in your post on 49 “Keen Says:
June 22nd, 2011 at 2:40 pm
I just couldnâ€™t use WoW. Iâ€™ve talked about my perfect MMO before.

DAOC meets UO meets SWG.

Perfect balance of PvP, â€œstuff to doâ€ and world feel. All skill based (no levels) via SWGâ€™s tiered skill trees (you gain exp in what you use and spend that exp on skillups).

Hereâ€™s a link to my fantasy sandbox MMO post from â€™09.
https://www.keenandgraev.com/?p=3092”

Other then the SWG which I didnt play and housing set up at predetermined areas AC was beyond beautiful in its simplicity yet adventerous enough to satiate the most ardant explorer. In fact I quit Rift due to the boring threadmill to go back to an 11 year old MMO that I still consider 2nd to none. A rework on some small things like melee combat and an UI and graphical upgrade would do wonders for the game. Anyways here are some of the quotes from Wikipedia concenring AC.

1. The world itself is large at over 500 square miles (1,300 km2).[4]. Unlike many other games in the genre, there are no zones. This means players can cross the world on foot without loading screens or invisible barriers and any terrain that can be seen in the distance was a real object in the world. It also had a much longer viewing distance then other games of the time, with mountains, bodies of water and other terrain being visible long before it was actually approached

2. Apart from the seamless surface world, some of the portals also led to intricate dungeons. Many of the dungeons were part of quests containing unique treasures. Dungeons were often much more difficult to navigate then the surface world. They included dizzying labyrinths of passageways in which it was possible to get lost or cut off from your adventuring group, trapped in pits due to missing difficult jumps, stuck behind locked doors, or simply surrounded and overwhelmed by beasts. Some doors required keys. Others had series of levers to open doors which required group teamwork and timing to run or jump through.

3. Players attune themselves to lifestones. Upon losing all of their health players will be resurrected at the last lifestone they attuned themselves to, having lost half their pyreals, one or more valuable items, and temporarily losing a certain percentage of their primary and secondary statistics due what is known as a “vitae penalty”.[5] The resurrected player may then go to the place the death occurred and recover the item(s) and pyreals from his or her corpse. If killed by another player the victor is allowed to take the dropped items from the vanquished player. The vitae penalty is removed by gaining a small amount of experience.

Player Killers, also known as PKs, are players who have chosen to change their status to enable them to attack other PKs in Player vs Player combat. On most servers players by default are prevented from attacking each other and must change their status to allow themselves to become PKs. One server, however, is completely PK; players are able to attack each other at will and cannot remove their PK status on Darktide

4. Asheron’s Call features a unique allegiance and fealty system that creates formal links between players and rewards cooperative play.[3] A player of a lower level can swear allegiance to a player of a higher level, becoming a vassal of a patron. The patron earns a small percentage of the experience the vassal makes, while the vassal is motivated to seek a patron exchange for money, items, or protection.[6] In the words of one reviewer: “At worst, the allegiance system is a multilevel marketing scheme, whereby greedy, uncaring Patrons enlist as many Vassals as possible in order to gain large amounts of bonus experience. But at best, the allegiance system can provide a tightly knit companionship for players genuinely interested in helping others and developing an organized assembly.”[7] Players may also join together in fellowships, temporarily splitting the experience they gain amongst themselves.[6]

5. Upon its launch, Asheron’s Call also featured a Spell Economy system which, coupled with the game’s complex spell-learning process, caused early players to jealously guard the formulas to the spells. The Spell Economy looked at the global use of each spell and made more commonly cast spells less effective, making it a wise move to protect lesser known spells. This system was removed from the game after the release of “Split Pea”, a third party program which allowed players to instantly figure out the progression of spell components.

6. Players can enhance Armor, Weapons, and Items with a process called tinkering. Unwanted items can be salvaged for raw materials and those materials can be applied to other items to augment the player’s attributes or imbue special abilities to weapons to increase their effectiveness.

7. Set in a heroic-fantasy world[3] Asheron’s Call allows players to create a character, or avatar from one of six (as of March 2010 Event) in-game races. The player initially allocates a limited number of attribute points (such as ‘Strength’, ‘Coordination’, and ‘Quickness’) and selects skills (such as ‘Unarmed Combat’, ‘War Magic’ and ‘Melee Defense’) for the character, with those base skills starting at a level determined by the character’s attributes. Unlike many other games of the genre characters are not locked into a specific class, and can even reallocate previously selected skills to acquire other skills later in the game.

Gameplay involves earning experience points through a variety of activities, including engaging and defeating monsters in combat, fulfilling quests, and interacting with NPCs. Those earned experience points can then be invested to improve the character’s abilities by spending it on attributes or skills. Additional skill points are awarded after the character reaches certain levels, and these skill points can then be used to acquire a new skill. In addition to earning experience, questing and combat yields ‘loot’, such as armor, weapons, health potions, and spell scrolls. Many types of loot can be improved or imbued with special spells and effects via Asheron’s Call’s ‘tinkering’ crafting system.

It offers “episodic narrative content, period new quests, and events that visibly affect the entire world.[3]

8. Many elements of Asheron’s Call are radically different from most other MMORPGs. For example, Asheron’s Call does not divide its world into different level zones. While some areas are much more dangerous to players than others, there is nonetheless a mix of different creatures types that creates much more unpredictability than is present in other games. Another key difference is that Asheron’s Call does not use character level as the major determinant in the outcome of a combat. Level simply determines what skills are available, and it is the skills and equipment of players and creatures that determine the outcome. Whereas in many games a player will be able to move a cursor over an opponent and instantly know from their level whether they will be successful in combat, in Asheron’s Call a character might be able to defeat much higher level foes or lose to much lower level ones, again depending upon one’s skill choices and equipment. As with the absence of specific level zones, this creates a higher degree of unpredicatability than in most games of this type.

Sorry for the wall of text but I will defend my beloved first MMO to the death and I truely feel a hybrid of AC/UO/DAoC with some ‘very’ small amount of themepark elements blended in to entice the new generation of MMO players, or the WoW crowd.

@Sentack: Darkfall is definitely not UO in 3D. Not even remotely close.

In my opinion, the next innovation is not gonna be a 100% sandbox, nor another theme park. It’s gonna be a dynamic world where situations are created on the fly, quests are generated depending on the environment, the ecosystem is living and changing. A sandbox with questing elements, but with nothing set in stone. Your alts will never encounter the same quests than your main at the same place.

When will it come? No idea. But it will come.

I can see potential for innovation by reversing the “control” trend in current MMO game design and going back into the opposite direction. Instead of continuously finetuning the game experience and game designers wanting to control every detail of the game experience…they will put control back into the hand of players and instead give players the tools to deal with the world and game problems.

I do believe that the people playing these games (or who used to play these games?) can make their own fun and their own adventure but for that one needs freedom and the necessary tools. Once you have freedom and tools you can have tons of fun…the problem is…you can also do a lot of crap…

This started the entire trend that we see where content is forced down our throats with pretty pictures and cut scenes. Players used to have too much freedom and the designers could not deal with the disadvantages of having too much freedom. Instead of addressing these disadvantages, they decided to control the game elements and remove the freedom.

I can see a new innovative game where the freedom and tools is not only given back to the player base but increased to the point where the players can deal with the negatives themselves.

@Keen: It’s hard to be objective in replying to these posts, just fyi. It’s very frustrating when you invalidate statements by basically saying “You’re wrong and I’m right”. It really is. But, I guess.. on that merit alone.. you do win. So, congratulations?

Well, you said:

“The market needs to move forward, not backwards. We learn from our past, we donâ€™t try and relive it.”

I disagreed and pointed out that this market does not learn from its past. Classic example: Warhammer Online. WAR was developed to be the next DAOC yet they showed that nothing was learned. They missed key features and mechanics that were obvious. Worst part? It was developed by the same company that made DAOC!

I don’t think that’s saying “You’re wrong and I’m right”. You came to that common sense conclusion on your own.

If I’m not mistaken, Mythic specifically said that WAR was not designed as the next DAOC.Having only 2 factions is proof of that.

2 Factions is merely proof that they thought it was too time consuming and difficult to implement and balance three factions…it doesn’t show much more.

@ Joy-Energiser

Only two factions is also evidence that the people still at Mythic at the time of WAR’s development didn’t really understand what made DAoC great.

Also,just because you don’t intend to make a DAoC 2 (which they said many times throughout development – and I would argue was more obvious based on the IP choice than the # of factions) doesn’t mean you can’t carry over concepts and lessons learned from that game (which I think they said many times that they WERE doing). Further evidence that they didn’t know why DAoC worked.

It’s taken DAoC 10 years to slowly shrink down to its current population, which took WAR less than about 2 years to get down to a similar population, and WAR’s subs peaked at about 800,000 if I recall correctly, while DAoC’s peaked somewhere around 250,000.

Looking back now, I realize I must have been a blind fanboi of the game during development, because otherwise my first clue should have been when they took down the beta about 9 months before release to add keeps and forts…

While they never intended on making “DAOC 2”, they specifically mentioned multiple times in their videos how they decided to alter development of WAR to make it more like DAOC. Hence the addition of keeps.

I think the idea of 3 factions would be seen as problematic by developers. It is hard enough to balance 2 factions, let alone 3.

It would also be especially difficult if after the initial honeymoon period there had to be extensive server mergers to keep populations up on 3 sides; “simple” mergers might not be possible resulting in spliting of servers to repopulate different factions on various servers.

Adding a 3rd faction would increase the number of potential problems in more than a straigntforward +50% additive fashion as compared to 2 factions.

…don’t get me wrong, I would love top play a good 3 faction game, it is just that for the long haul I would rather play a good 2 faction game as opposed to an unbalanced and underpopulated 3 faction game.

It’s sad and indicative of the current MMO market that you have to plan ahead for server merges and the honeymoon period ending.

DAOC did 3 factions and never experienced any of those problems for years.

3 factions helped alleviate population balance.

Balance issues are always present in every game. It never ends.

I can respect that in the long haul you would prefer a 2 faction system. I would prefer a 3 faction system. I know from experience that, for me, it is way more fun and solved many problems while creating greater dynamic gameplay.

If you want an example of what NOT to do with a MMO (as if SWG NGE wasn’t a good enough example), just take one look at the firestorm going on over in Iceland right now.

And by the way, new game announced 3 faction pvp, RvRvR with none other then (Tweety) Sanya as the CM:

Primeonline.com

I would much rather have a 3 faction system so long as it is functional, which I assume is a major worry of AAA developers. We know they are aware that the prospect exists and has been carried out successfully (I go on your word here as I never played DAOC), so they are likely purposefully avoiding using such a dynamic; my guess is that with the increased complexity would come increased potential for problems. I think it likely in a market with a high failure rate there will be an increased CYA factor that favors exclusion of mechanics that are at least perceived to be risky or non-conventional.

Again for innovation I think we need to look toward the indies; on that point, I think too much emphasis is placed in these threads on trying to get a AAA company to put out the next best â€œWoW-breakerâ€ game. I believe what has been stated previously that the readers of this blog are no longer the target audience of the AAA companies, and the masses in massive are not that critical of the game play experience; I would go so far as to suggest that many of the factors that we would like to see incorporated into our GA games would be of little interest or even a negative selling point to the casual mainstream gamer. Maybe our like-minded group would be better off with a smaller game from an indie that could grow over time, which emphasized quality over quantity; after all who needs 8 servers of mediocrity? The unfortunate thing as you pointed out is that the combination of selling out the hardcore/dedicated (choose the word here that best describes you) gamers with safe and bland game mechanics and the short attention span of the casual (almost by definition) gamer means that most games will quickly wither like the latest reality TV show release…

Good info Dark, thanks!

A 2 faction system (in a game that employs Open World PvP)not only creates the population imbalance, it makes it perpetually worse. A 3rd faction wouldn’t require more balancing, it would require no balancing.

When you have 2 factions and 1 is winning, it gains pop, the losing faction loses pop, and then everything becomes unfixable and server transfers ensue.

With 3 factions it’s alot tougher for 1 faction to get more pop then the other 2 combined so it’s it’s own safeguard.

I think the innovation will come from integrating PvP content into the storylines and quests instead of separating it into instances. Hitting a quest hub and grabbing 4 solo quests, 2 group quests, 2 PvP group quests, 1 raid quest, all inside some type of Bioware story mode is where we’ll end up with MMOs. A hybrid of themepark and sandbox where the designers have the rides for you to go on but put them into the context of an open world that locks out parts of maps when even fights are initated thru questing. Instead of having an instanced pvp capture the flag that you can sign up for thru a menu system have a destination oriented system that brings players into the sandbox contextually.

@iLkR:

I can see your point, unless of course 2 factions ended up trying to target the same weaker faction, purposely or not (I could think of many reasons to do this, especially if one could steal resources and complete quests in each otherâ€™s zones; many might chose to take the easier route).

Assuming that what you say is valid, why then do you think experienced game developers shy away from the obvious appeal of 3 faction mechanics; is it just that the design of an entire new 3rd realm with lore and quests is not economically feasible?

1. WoW and it’s 10+mil subscribers make it hard for all these developers to convince the suit-type guys above them to try something different.

2. Many people erroneously associate 3 faction system with PvP centered system and a PvP centered game puts off many of the casual crowd. I want a 3 faction system but not at the expense of PvE content.

3. Yes, IMO 3 factions means more content that the developers have to make and creating a PvE storyline/background/lore becomes more complicated when you can’t use the good vs. evil cliche.

I completely agree with you, I was a DAoC player myself, and there isn’t a single day that goes by where I wouldn’t go back to DAoC if it had a stronger population, the only reason I play WoW is because all of my friends are there, and push come to shove, I play MMO’s for the social factor.

That said, I think a lot of developers have a big problem with player-guided end-game and social grouping, simply because of how out-of-control it feels.

Take Mythic’s end game in daoc, an open ended RvR with some key motivators, and the rest being left up to the players. People went fucking NUTS for it, but Mythic couldn’t quite pin down the “what” and “why”, which is what the Marketing people want to know, so that they can make MORE of it to sell. So they attempted to funnel and guide the content, incentivizing more and more requisite content, and without realizing it, created a horrible wall between their player base and the activity that created that player base in the first place.

In fact, I would wager that almost every attempt by a game company to funnel, control, and guide the player experience (In a restrictive manner, mind), has resulted in loss of players, as well as the premature deaths of several new games that attempted to open with an on-rails endgame experience.

People would probably counter that argument with the example of WoW, which has on-rails written allover it’s end game, but I personally believe that WoW’s success has been due primarily to it’s basic mechanics, simple playability, and almost universal likeability, combined with the fact that it’s crossed a virtual event horizon of population thresholds, with players deciding to play WoW NOT because it’s their favorite game, but because it’s what everyone else is playing. If 11 million (or 1 million) people were playing any other game that I liked better than WoW (DAoC being an example), I would play that game, as I would feel secure that it had a forseeable future, and my time would not be wasted (any more than it already is playing a video-game ^_^)

Hmmm, GW2 looks like it might have some of the attributes of a superior gaming model:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/117/1179026p1.html?_cmpid=ign18