[Discuss] The Sandbox you wish to have.
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I know there was still some threads about the sandboxing feature.
Here a little list of threads in which it was discussed:
My intension of the thread is, to discuss about your favourite sandbox feeling.
That can be the kind of sandbox you prefer or the possibilities of sandboxgaming.For me there are some examples of sandboxes and my result of likes and don't likes of them:
On first i want to mention Salem the Game, because its a balanced MMO-Sandbox that i liked most:
- it is a openworld sandbox with deep PVP aspect, not farmville with combat, more Mortal Combat with Corn.
- you can claim/build wherever you want (with some few restrictions on Mountain biomes and public areas)
- you can lose your claim and progress in reason of several actions by other players
- you can lose all your stuff or even your characters (permadeath)
- but you are able to defend your stuff, if you learned get to used to the mechanics
- for bad things that happens is a crime system implemented (just for completion the aspect of destroying)
- you can change ground (digging or filling up)
- you can change biomes
- for building your personal or town claim you have a set of buildings that you can arrange
- That part is prefab building, but thats okay, because the focus of sandboxing is on designing the claim and saving your stuff.
- Most buildings and structures have a functionality for crafting, storing or defending.
- There are some decoration items for the girls between us who want to build up our "dollhouse"
My conclusion: Even the gamegraphic is surely nothing most would play in 2018, it was till now one of the most balanced and themed sandboxing i played. I know i would not fascinate much of you into the game itself, but it is definetivly worth to get some ideas of mechanics from it.
I was also reading about Minecraft, that was mentioned on some other threads.
Minecraft is (beside just playing with "ugly" blocks) one of the coolest sandboxing game ever, because of its possibility to create whatever you want. It's strength based on it's modularity.
But for a special themed game it would not be the right setting.
I mean a themed game itself should not lose its special character and atmosphere, just because player are too free in creating things. Well, in Minecraft you are still limited by the set of possibilities that the Serverowner gives in your hands.
Lets just make a little discourse into Pseudo Sandboxing, there are many examples, that is going from just own homeplots/hideouts/housing everyone in a single instance, till the Housing/Sandboxing Areas for a group of players.
I don't want to see this kind in Fractured, because it seperates people from each other. If you have such a Pseudo Sandbox, you will spend most time alone in your little instanced housing area and "never" get in any interaction with other players.
I want to mention platforms like Second Life too, even it is not a game.
I think we can agree all together, that Second Life kind platforms are the greatest Sandboxes ever, because of the just user created content. I don't want to discuss Second Life or similar Platforms itself, because that does not matter for a themed game.
But i want to point on the repeating questions by player in sandbox games: "Are we allowed to upload own created things."
To be honest, yes i would like it if it would be possible with limits. I think it would give a game a next step on interaction.
But i think for such user uploaded content it needs a special team of moderation, that decide if the upload will be legal.
Beside the look of things, from just textures to own structures (like Statues or Totems or whatever) i also think on player created quests.
I missed in most themed games the possibility of player created tasks, that you can store ingame and make it accessible to other player. I used in much other Non-Sandbox games third-party scripts for it (like lua scripts in WoW), but it has always the problem, that the player created quest is not available, if you are not online at same time.
My conclusion for it: To have a limited system to create playermade content would be great and surely an unique point for a game that want to be other than others.I know that the last point i mentioned was implemented in UO, i sadly never played it.
But i ask myself always, why no (well known) game after UO took up these cool features. Maybe it was, because the gamer community turned lazy and just wanted light consuming of prefabed themeparks. After they played them now for many years, the gamer start to remember or the younger ones are just supersaturated by always same mash. Who knows.What do YOU wish for a grandios Sandbox feeling that don't break the game theme?
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I didn't play at a lot of sandbox games, but there is some things I would like to see in a game.
- Firstly, it is, as you said, the housing. I really like to create my own house and decorate it as I want. I already did some housing with SWtOr, and I can spend my time to try to have the best decoration ! I'm not really bothered by instanced housing areas, you can invite people to them without being bothered by others who want to steal the appetizer !
- Secondly, about the craft. I'm not really a crafter, because it bother me to craft the same thing hundred times to level up my craft level, and do it again with the next object. If you have a scheme, you don't need a certain level to create it.
- Thirdly, no restriction level. We all know the areas we can't go if we wont die in one-shot because you are level 10 and the monsters are 50. Sure, some monsters can be harder to kill because of a better equipement or else.
- Fourthly, quests who can lead to different paths, or you can do what you want. For example, you must save someone, but you don't like his face, and you kill him. Everything has consequences, but you don't care
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@kralith I think too much freedom can break the immersion. The theme police is something that would require a large number of people to be hired for this specific job. Not cost effective at all. So, player uploaded items is ... well... not on my list. I haven't played Salem but i think that if property is easy to loose it must be easy to acquire, otherwise it becomes a burden. Consider the fact that your house could be "conquered" while you are offline. I like the idea of taking over a city with your guild/ faction, but it should take place in somehow scheduled battles. And it shouldn't force people out of their homes/enterprises, but instead allow the victors to set and collect taxes. In fact, this is exactly how it mostly happened IRL throughout human History! As far as player made questing is concerned, yes, a dedicated system would most certainly encourage the practice. But no MMO has ever stopped you from sending a message to whoever you wish, even global chat saying "will pay x amount of currency, for x amount of resource". That's essentially a player made quest. "Party looking for Tank to go do x dungeon" is another player made quest. So the option is always there! I agree with pretty much everything else you said. Cheers!
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@darian said in [Discuss] The Sandbox you wish to have.:
And it shouldn't force people out of their homes/enterprises, but instead allow the victors to set and collect taxes. In fact, this is exactly how it mostly happened IRL throughout human History!I really like this idea as a way to make property ownership and wars feasible and fun.
I've been playing Haven and Hearth, which is very similar (I think they shared management/development once upon a time) to Salem. Being able to wander the wilderness, finding an area I like, and just setting up camp is a great feeling. They don't quite have housing done in a way I like (instancing), but every other component that you build feels good (perimeter walls, all the large tools and such you use, etc).
Freeform housing is something that's definitely a desirable trait in a game. My favorite has historically been that of Ultima Online. People can create some bad designs that don't look great though. I'd say it'd be nice if such a style of house creation was built, players could design their houses, and then submit it to the mayor / governor / secretary of housing for approval. This could help build cities that fit a theme, or at least prevent garbage designs from getting built.
As far as user uploaded material, you'd probably also want to use a reviewing system, but frankly I could do without, especially for the hermits who wouldn't have someone regulating what they put up.
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Yes @Armentia both games are very similar and originating developed by same 2 people.
I just took a small look into H&H, feeled more "home" in Salem.
But both systems made a great gamefeeling.
This kind of fear, this kind of always being guardedly, the joy, if your defense was good designed and the perp did not got you, even the scare of being a criminal. Also the terrible grind that not feeled like grind
Thats btw. some point @Esher, a crafting system should not be like "Make 1000 of this to get one point more". In Salem and Haven & Heart you was crafting all the time, that was part of the game. And crafting was always useful. Like dig Clay, make unburnded pots from it, burn them in a kiln, craft a wastebin, raise worms, make dirt, use dirt on pot with a tree sapling, let it rais, plant it, chop the tree down, make fresh boards, dry them, plane them, oil them.... and so on and so on.
You was busy whole time with tasks... but it never feeled stupid like in other games where it is like "Kill 1000 Mobs to get this 10 Mats you need .... over and over".@Darian i also don't think there should be too much freedom, since it will be a themed game with by Developer created PVE content. The Theme itself should never get broken just because Player think it is so totally funny to place big dick pics or something else into the game. And i'm sure, also in this game we will get this kind of player, who like to hold the level very low.
As for the Playermade quests, yes its true your examples are such one, but i would more call it Trade and Service. My sense of player created quests are going a bit more far, like creating questlines with a special story. And that you can't do with the typical systems where you just post in a chat "Giev me 10 Stone for 1 Silver! kk thx bye!!11".
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Aspects like being able to build anywhere (or at least, outside of established cities, like in Star Wars Galaxies), remains the Holy Grail of open world sandboxing to me. It places you and your stuff in the game world and even if no one ever comes inside your house, it doesn't matter because, to you, you are there, living in the game world.
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@kralith I think you convinced me to play at Salem the Game ^^
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@Esher, be careful, the community there is small, but as less they are as more toxic they are
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@kralith It does seem these days the smaller community the more toxic
My favorite-ish sandbox that I think did housing/claims fairly well was a small game called Xsyon. The terraforming/base building aspect of it really felt cool if you were part of a guild/big group, working together to turn a plot from nothing to something was fun. Exploration too, hunting for plots and land that looked good to establish your base/fort with groups of people. And the initial launch rush of setting up your city/claiming your land and whatnot, all good fun.
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Being able to give quests to other players with an in-game addition thing other than doing it myself throughout the chat (which I sure am planning to) would be amazing like give me a "Adventurer's Board" type of deal where I can say "Bring me this amount of this thing and I'll pay you this" where I get to choose the number of people that can have accepted or completed the quest I have given is the one thing I wish to have. This would also free the chat from this spam, help with the reach of your messages and if people are looking to get some quests from it they have easy access.
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Something like in black desert trade routes with risk involved
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@moonfanng Yes this idea is a great one. I never played black desert, but i heard a lot about this. I think the play feeling will grow much, if any action get a risk component.
In Salem it is per example the player to player trading, you only can share things on barrels and chests in maintown as long you are not together in own claims. And every other is able to grab your stuff, if you did not saved the barrel with blocking by at least 3 characters in reason of the collision mechanics. Thats a point too, i think an MMO needs a collision between player, i never liked this walking through each other. For PVP it was great in Warhammer online, because you could plan a siege way better with blocking tanks.
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I'd like to see supply chains. Perhaps food is a nigh mandatory buff, so a settlement worth its salt would want to provide access to food, which could require sums of meat and wood for players wanting to build it up to gather. Perhaps metal and leather brought back could be used to make equipment which not only goes towards arming players, but maybe funding NPC guards to keep it safer overall. Little things like that could make it very easy to set goals for contribution when hopping on for a bit, or give cause for resources to be fought over besides simple expansion.
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I like the sandbox concept but I really want some good pvp too like uligim had
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An relavant crafting.
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@vezlin Yup, I certainly think this would work. Perhaps players could have daily jobs related to crafting professions through which they contribute to the growth of a city in exchange for currency and reputation (which could translate in better prices, or access to certain commodities like bank-space or advanced workshops).
