Whats the problem with Sandboxes?

[LateX'Dog]

As the title says, what is the problem with Sandboxes?

Why are companies not making them?

I personally see more re playability, less developmental costs and less oversight.

But what am i missing? Why are we not seeing more of them, but instead seeing more theme parks?

 

[LateX'Dog]

Developers themselves have lots of great ideas for games that would be awesome.
The marketing department, have no figures for potential sales of sandbox games, so return "According to our numbers, this project will have ZERO sales"
Management, being management, look at the marketing projection and return "no sales? this is a stupid idea.. make another franchise game because sales projections for that are high".

This is one of the reasons that Star Citizen exploded.. CR went to the publishers, they looked at potential sales figures, had no data for the style of game, so told him it would never sell.. He went crowdfunded, and so far, over three hundred thousand people have pre-purchased the game.. Of course, the publishers, are now kicking themselves..

Interesting, thanks for the post.

 

[LateX'Dog]

Most sandboxes lack gameplay and things to do, JC2 perfect example, massive map but the missions consist of go here blow this up, kill this guy. Makes it feel empty imo.

I think JC2 was a theme park in a sandbox. Not a true sandbox, where the content is developed around the sandbox.

 

[LateX'Dog]

Sandbox games tend to be harder to manage once they are released (certainly in the MMO market at least) as no matter how many developers and testers you throw at a sandbox game once it's out in the wild, someone, somewhere will figure out an exploit or take advantage of a certain feature they didn't think of and then they are faced with having to patch the game (rapidly if it's multiplayer/MMO).

Not so bad in single player sandbox environments, but bad in multi player where hordes of pitchfork/torch wielding mobs take to the forums to demand roll backs, item compensation, money etc - all bad press for your game.

Much easier to tell players how to play.

I don't think you would get negative press. If you respond correctly to the bugs, then you can generally address them without much backlash.

I think sandboxes are more about little and often, rather then sweeping. If an exploit creates a new style of game play, then correctly patch that into the game. If a exploit causes harm, fix it as fast as possible and carry on.

 

[LateX'Dog]

The fact that they seem to have become synonymous with open PvP. Whenever the word 'sandbox' is mentioned, there's always a small but very vocal element that demands that there must be full loot open world unrestricted PvP for it to be a proper sandbox.

Mortal Online and Darkfall Online have dispelled the myth that there are millions of players just dying to throw money at an open PvP sandbox. Give me something like the old SWG, where I can build a city out in the dunes and set up shop without having to worry about some asshat burning it down while I'm offline

Wasn't SWG completely open world PvP? Or did you have to flag your self? I can't remember, as i didn't play it for too long.

I don't think MO and DO dispelled the myth at all, i think they where low budget attempts and ended up being half baked. I think if a large developer took a stab at it, it would end up quite profitable.

 

[LateX'Dog]

I'd go with this.

In SWG, the quests were all the same (go here and kill x), no achievements, no progression (other than the professions you chose and trying to unlock Jedi), no storyline and no real 'goal'.

The entire player experience was determined by the people you met in the game and the effort the playerbase put in (resources, crafting, setting up towns, guild rivalry etc...)

If you found yourself on a server with low population you could find yourself flying on a speeder around an entire planet and not see one player.

I look upon SWG with very rose tinted glasses as the people I met made my experience amazing but I suspect if the Star Wars theme had been removed and I hadn't found myself amongst fun people, I would have dropped it like a hot potato.

You only have to look at the way WOW has adapted over the years to see the shift from Massively to Not-so-Massively (you can play on your own if you want, just give us your cash!). I suspect having an asset that is entirely dependant on the playerbase is a very risky investment in the publisher's eyes ...

I think this is it right here.

I think the industry has moved too far away from player gaming and too much into player experiencing.

So is gaming at the moment, not so much about playing a game as playing an experience now? Linear driven, lack of puzzles and complex mechanics, corridor shooters and linear stories.

It wont be for another decade until i think the industry will change, we are reaching or have reached the peak of gaming experiencing and we are seeing signs of gaming coming back into the industry, but at the moment the industry is generally made up of developers who have only existed in the experience and too few developers from the gaming era.

 

[LateX'Dog]

I find most Sandboxes such as GTA5, Skyrim have Huge Open worlds however they just lack content between town, cities etc.

Take GTA5 for Example, I am mainly talking about Online as there is truly nothing to do in the Open space apart from drive around and it gets so boring, fast

The difference with single player sandboxes is your reliant upon the content created by the developers, in a true player driven sandbox you make the content.

So going from 1 town to the next, you might pass a small player bandit camp for example in Skyrim. The player base fills out the content holes so to speak.

 

[LateX'Dog]

There are grades of theme park too though. Some mmos literally lead you by the nose from quest hub to quest hub, killing 10 rats or clicking 10 items all the way from 1 to the level cap. You can do it with your eyes closed.

Things like multiple starting areas, hidden quest chains, rewards for exploration, dynamic seasons and weather and dynamic events all help to mix things up. It doesn't have to be a total sandbox to feel less like a fairground ride and more like a living world.

But isn't that just polishing a turd? No matter how much you polish its still a turd?

 

[LateX'Dog]

They are making them...

Sandbox is just not the be all and end all of game environments, linearity works perfectly well as a method of telling a story, stop thinking that just because you prefer sandbox environments they are somehow automatically the best way of doing anything.

I would rather a game be completely Linear than be forced into a sandbox unnecessarily.



Perfect example of the type of elitism and condescension this thread is dripping in. Grow up, people enjoy different things and you have no right to belittle them or treat them like some sort of lower class citizen for it.

Wow, seriously aggression straight off the bat. Until your post people where making arguments for and against and having a respectful discussion. There is no need to bring your anger into this.

I have not said Sandboxes are superior and no one is being elitist or condescending.

 

[LateX'Dog]

It's not an insult or a belittlement if its true. A large portion of new gamers do prefer the handholding them park, there is no demand for a free rein free thought sandbox so what I said is entirely true. You may not like the fact you are this type of gamer (if indeed you are, though you just be spoiling for an argument) but not liking a fact makes it untrue is unfortunately not reality.

Chin up (now there's the condescension you were mentioning )

Newts, we can strike this one up to something i agree with you on.

Shocking i know

 

[LateX'Dog]

Here's a few of the issues as I see them:
-"what is the point?" - it is difficult to market something which has no real objective, and by market I'm including stuff like getting positive reviews in the press

That isn't true, Minecraft is a perfect example.

But i do agree with you you some what, its hard to sell a game about creativity to a market that lacks it.

-Giving players too much freedom gives much more potential to expose flaws in the game design (engine, continuity, performance etc). Make things too open ended and you might make it too easy for a player to have a very boring / flawed / pained experience (e.g. something unexpected happens that makes 'progress' (however you want to define that) very difficult)

Thats true, but if you are a keen dev, you can just fix the exploits as soon as they are discovered. You could maybe offer in game rewards to people who find exploits and send them into devs?

The boring experience aspect i feel is down to a lack of gameplay incentive and player creativity. You could add in theme park elements, like player created quests from their towns to provide the town with resources, rewards for bandits or pkers etc

-It is difficult to know where to focus development effort, or rather, feel like you are getting good value from it. With linear games, you can focus on making that linear path an incredible, atmospheric experience with high production values. With a sandbox game, you could spend days developing something that 99% of players will never get to appreciate. This in my opinion is one of the main reasons why even seemingly 'open world' RPGs always have more focus on the primary quest arcs.

This i completely agree with.

 

[LateX'Dog]

What about Skyrim? That is sandbox and AAA title?

I think Skyrim is a Theme Park in a Sandbox, but it falls into that "outside of the main story, what do i do" problem that a lot of gamers experience.

Yeah it has lots of side quests and so on, but they are bring 10 bear pelts, deliver this to dave and I've lost this item go find it. I'm not saying Skyrim is bad, i love Skyrim.

You can't build an NPC bandit army and take over towns, you can only build your house in very specific locations, you can't turn a cave into your house etc etc.