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MMOGs and Sandbox-Style Play
An anonymous reader writes "Why do so few games truly embrace the sandbox metaphor? The folks at GamersWithJobs have their own opinions, and think that MMOGs may be replacing The Sims as the center of the 'emergent gameplay' movement. From the article: 'I don't know if it's a function of age, or experience or perhaps just changing tastes, but my favorite games are increasingly the ones where I can find my own methods of play. I loved that Dead Rising simply gave me a maul, a chainsaw and an army of zombies. Perhaps my love of MMOs is as much related to the opportunity to explore and adventure on my own as any actual construction of gameplay.'"
I can't decide if this is a typo or not. I know it takes place in a MALL, as in a shopping center, but I haven't played the game, so I'm a little short on details. I know it's known for giving you a wide variety of weapons, but is a MAUL, as in a large two-handed warhammer, one of them? Or does any large impromptu bludgeoning device count? Is this a typo, a clever play on words, or an unintended pun?
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When Star Wars: Galaxies first came out it was more of a sandbox game and I absolutely loved it. I would love to see another game try it because I think SOE handled the whole game badly and I'd like to see that type of game done really well.
Most of us never played knight in shining armor off to rescue the princes; cops and robbers; or tag since we were kids, yet we play Mario and FF; Need for Speed and GTA; and Super Smash Bros as adults.
Funny thing how so many of us are just kids at heart and we're loving it. Peter Pan rocks.
Thats why most games don't embrace it- because most gamers (not all, but most) don't want it. When faced with a sandbox game, I pick it up, go to play it, and then go "Now what?" There's no storyline to follow, no objective to complete. No way to progress in the game. Its fun for maybe 15 minutes, then its boring as hell. Its a niche market, there's room for a few games like that, but most games will avoid that style of gameplay.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
The author only mentions MMOs in the last paragraph. He doesn't even list what MMOs he likes, let alone the qualities of a successful sandbox MMO. In fact the article is best summed up as "Why I think The Sims is better than Grand Theft Auto."
It's interesting that he should mention The Sims, MMOs, and sandbox gameplay in the same article. The Sims Online - a game EA has practically shoved under the rug - was a miserable failure, despite a preexisting Sims fanbase and mainstream coverage from the likes of TIME. Don't get me wrong: I like sandbox games as much as the author. But The Sims Online was an uninspired grindfest that required you to perform insultingly repetitive tasks to "level up" your Sim. EA might've finally changed this since I quit, though I doubt it.
I find the popular MMOs (WoW, Guild Wars) to be incredibly restrictive and linear. Ya, I can wonder around a gameworld, but I can barely impact how it functions or really do what I want.
From what I heard (I don't own any MS consoles), Dead Rising also gave you a pretty strict time limit if you wanted to, you know, actually complete the objectives of the game, too.
It seems to me that a good Sandbox type of game--let's take Morrowind or GTA for popular examples--would give you more or less as much time as you like to complete the "story" or "objective" missions, and then have a whole bunch of stuff to just play around with/in. Even if it makes perfect, logical sense to have a strict time limit, that doesn't necessarily mean that it must be done. In fact, I'd think that works strongly against the Sandbox motif--if I want to just dick around in the game for a while--go gain a couple levels or snoop around for useful loot--I shouldn't have to sacrifice the rest of my current play-through.
I've played A Tale in the Desert and its a decent game. No combat, and arguably a bit of a sandbox-style game. You can basically do whatever you want within the limits of the game, but there are objectives and goals as well. The most rewarding aspect is working with fellow players in a guild to advance in the game. In the end, though, I don't feel the game offers anything beyond a little enjoyment. It isn't engaging enough for me to justify paying the subscription price.
I've also played quite a bit of EVE Online. Now there's a bit of a storyline to EVE, but the general goal of playing as far as I can tell is either to get really rich, really powerful, or both. As you progress in skills and equipment there can be some great fun fighting battles with your teammates to protect territory you have claimed as your own. But in the end for me it suffers the same fate as ATITD, it doesn't offer anything beyond a little enjoyment. It isn't engaging enough for me to justify paying the subscription price.
What I'd like to see rather than "sandbox" style games where you can be anything you want to be are games where what players do have a direct impact on the game world. Picture, if you will, a game that actually evolves beyond adding features. I'm not much of a visionary, but I'll try to put this forward to illustrate what I'm trying to explain: Now that's a game I would play, something where what I and what others around me do actually affect the game world in a significant way. Imagine a WWII style game where if your armies run around gold-mining instead of fighting towards a common goal the Third Reich actually does take over Europe and now you're behind the eight ball. Imagine in that game a real chain of command based on a democratic system where those at the top actually lay out strategies and plans for invasion, defense, disruption of enemy supply lines, etc. Imagine your enemy suddenly doesn't get that shipment of ammunition before you stage an offensive. Imagine being that enemy and suddenly being up shit creek and trying to scramble reinforcements. Imagine decision makers having to decide which engagement is more valuable and which victory can be sacrificed.
I may have to share this planet with animals, but I'm doing my damn best to eat every last one of them.
I don't know if it's a function of age, or experience or perhaps just changing tastes, but my favorite games are increasingly the ones where I can find my own methods of play.
It could be a function of age... as you get older, you realize that life itself is a kind of 'sandbox game' where you make your own path, and set your own goals within a larger pre-existing system. So having a game where you can approach it with your same day-to-day mindset, but also run down zombies with a jeep, makes sense in its appeal.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
The basic problem with MMORPGs games is that so few of them contain any real action or physics component. In something like WoW, you can run around in real time, but your interaction with the world is basically limited to whatever commands (attack, spells, etc) the developers program in. In something like GTA you get so-called "emergent gameplay" simply because you have some terrain and a physics engine, and it's a lot of fun just to race around trying to abuse it. Pedestrians, other vehicles, police, etc add an extra dimension of entertainment, but a mostly decorative one - fundamentally, GTA is fun because driving around insanely is fun, and everything else is just there to stimulate your imagination and placate that part of your mind that expects some context it can relate to. In most MMO games, the basic mechanics of the world don't enable much more than walking around and admiring the scenery. Gameplay in these environments is more contrived in the sense that it requires a greater mental investment in roleplaying and fabricating some motivating work-reward structure (which might be OCD trying to max your character out, social activity within a guild, or whatever).
Given an MMO with greater interactivity than the typical "run, click, watch animation" style, there are a lot of fun things you could do. A fine example of emergent gameplay within a very simple system, from my childhood playing the NES, was the game River City Ransom, which had just enough physics that two players could invent mini sports to play using the objects lying around, like baseball using a pipe and a rock, or a crude form of soccer by kicking a trash can around the map. There's an elemental simplicity to this that transcends the games of stat manipulation (decorated with pretty scenery and storylines) that RPGs typically offer.
If it sounds like I'm ragging on WoW, it's only because I'd rather be playing an MMO version of a game like Zelda.
"Game design is about giving the player _interesting_ choices."
If the player is bored, or is there is dead time (I'm looking at you WoW Designers and your stupid flight path times), your game play is BROKEN. People are not playing games to be bored -- they are playing to be entertained. All good games take fact of the "natural game play" cycle. In Halo it was shoot, rest, shoot rest. MMO's same pattern: Attack, Camp, Attack, Camp. Even turn-based games, computer or board games (Chess, MtG), have this cycle, of where you "interact with the world", and then you wait to see the outcome.
This is what makes DnD so great -- no dead time. The DM controls the pacing. (It stinks in other areas, but it got this fundamental, down pat.)
--
Games complaining about how a game is unrealistic is missing the point -- it's about whether the game is
a) believable, b) consistent, and c) logical
One reason why GTA is so popular as a sandbox game is because you DO have a storyline to go through. You can choose to finish the next objective/mission
-- jchenx
Or so it seems to me. There are very few sandbox style games out there these days in MMORPG land. I think this stems from most players lacking the imagination to take on an open world and find their own entertainment, probably because their prefered gameplay styles have evolved on other games and that shapes their preferences - although generalizations of that sort are naturally quite dangerous and notoriously unreliable. I am sure most people dislike sandbox games to whatever degree for a variety of reasons. I see less in the way of open ended game designs these days though, and most seem to feature some pretty heavy handed guidance for players to ensure they travel down the right (limited number of ) rails on their pass through the game.
Of course, the population of gamers who prefer to really Roleplay in game seems to also be dwindling. This may be a factor in the decline of the Sandbox game as well. Its only natural for those who prefer to engage in roleplaying to want to pop into a Sandbox environment, rub their hands together and say "Ok, now what shall we do first?". More traditional gamers who don't associate as directly with their characters are much more likely to approach the game from a Gamer perspective, and thus view it as a series of obstacles to be overcome, or perhaps a series of goals to be achieved, and set about resolving those as efficiently as possible. This probably ties into Bartle's MUD personality survey, which suggests there are 4 types of MUD gameplayers: Explorers, Achievers, Socializers and Killers. Roleplayers of course fall heavily on the Explorer and Socializer side of things. I think most standard gamers, coming from other types of gameplay will tend to fall into the Acheiver and Killer sides of things since those are emphacized more heavily in most computer and console games.
Star Wars Galaxies used to be the one of the best examples of a true Sandbox game in its original iteration. It has undergone 2 major revisions to its game mechanics, and each one in turn has reduced the "sandboxy" elements of the gameplay considerably. The current iteration - the so-called New Game Enhancement - is the least sandbox like game design I have ever seen, and the only vestiges of sandbox gameplay are those elements of the game that have not yet been revamped. The game is also all but dead as a result of these changes. Ultima Online is of course the granddaddy of MMORPGs effectively, and it, along with Asheron's Call and Everquest, were all more or less Sandboxy in design. All have also more or less fallen by the wayside these days.
New MMORPG offerings tend to be more linear, more structured, more quest-based and often link leveling of characters to elements of the game in a manner they need not have chosen to do. For instance in Warcraft a person interested primarily in crafting, is also forced to level up their character in combat, since crafting level is linked to character level for some reason. This is the antithesis of sandbox design. Dungeons & Dragons Online is almost entirely quest based, as are City of Heroes/City of Villains (where we can replace the word quest with mission), and most other games currently on the market.
Many of course offer a bit of both. The now venerable Dark Age of Camelot offers accelerated advancement in levels by either hunting or doing quests or instanced missions - mostly this is an attempt to let people get to the end game faster and thus retain subscribers I am sure. This game is also sadly dying, although the next offering from Mythic (Warhammer Online) will no doubt build on the successes of DAOC.
Vanguard Saga of Heroes is a modern Sandbox game, although it does offer questing as well. You can take up Crafting or Diplomacy and progress in those areas independant of your character's combat level. Its a very promising game, although it has high end equipment requirements
The flexbility of sandbox gaming is perhaps not structured enough for most individuals.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Slightly unrelated (hey, its Slashdot) but for a while now I have been noticing that the games I come back to play over, and over again are games which give me the freedom to play how I want to. Games where you chose how you solve problems, where you can charge in guns blazing or creep around the edges where you can out-gear/out-manoeuvre your opponents rather than out-twitch them.
Lets look at some examples that best explain what I mean:
Games which did it best:
Deus Ex
- Awesome game for many, many reasons, but relevant is the fact that you could approach each problem from many directions - two guards ahead - you can sneak past them using the vents (classic) you can go in guns blazing, you can set up some sort of proximity mine (gas/explosive) you can take control of nearby robots/turrets) you can tranquilise them, you can knock them out, you can find another way to go. Likewise, the way you create your character, you can dump all skillpoints into pistols, or rifles or you can put all your points into engineering/hacking and you can still finish the game. All styles of play are valid - you kill all the terrorists in the first level for example and your peacenik brother tells you off for killing too many people but the cops are cheering you on. Kill no one in that level and your brother praises you but the cops tell you off for being a peacenik.
Morrowind
- Huge game with incredible aesthetic value of art, flavour and atmosphere, lots to do and a ton of add on quests to expand it further. However, numerous ways to create and play your character open up the possibilities of actual, real re-playing. You can play a stealthy rogue or a rapid direct damage spell caster, or a demon-summoner or an armoured knight or any weird combination of these! You can catch on-rails transport or you can make ring of jumping or ring of flying or cast these spells yourself. The list goes on and on. If you play this game once and just charge everything with the biggest sword, you're missing out - there are many ways to play and finish this game! There is a kinda famous example of some guy that kept making intelligence potions to boost his int till he became so intelligent he could make potions to make himself invincible - yeah, borderline-bug exploit, but goes to show that even a lowly alchemist can make it in this world.
FarCry
- Yes, it is a pretty simple 1st person shooter. You can't bribe your way past the guards, effectively roleplay a "git off my lawn" druid or an evil knife wielding hacker. However, what this game did quite well was having huge open areas with plenty of cover for the player to approach most areas in any way they want. For example, there is a camp full of mercenaries up a head. It has some sniper towers, some guys in tents/buildings, alarm, radio that can call in for helicopter and two fixed position miniguns. You might need a vehicle from that camp, or a keycard, etc. Now this is where the fun starts: you can ride in your car blasting everyone. Or you can use a silenced gun and slowly creep through the camp taking people out 1 or 2 at a time from behind before they can fire a shot. Or you can sneak up into one of the sniper towers and take people out from there. Or you can get up on a nearby hill and sniper or rocket from there. Or you can fire some shots from one direction, run into the forest, run around the camp, then do the same thing from opposite direction, taking a few people out every time. Or you can drag all the mercs into the forest, taking them out as they are chasing you through the trees. Or you can run into the camp and take one of the miniguns and start mowing down everyone. Or find a boat and do bombardment from the nearby river! Or a combination of any of these! Then the helicopter with reinforcements arrives and you have many choices again, from shooting it down yourself to taking up one of the fixed miniguns, etc
Almost made it:
GTA-SA
- A lot of missions were basically "use this car, with this gun, to go on these streets, do not deviate"