I miss my sandbox

[Vilidius]

I was just looking at more information about Wildstar and at the same time I've been poking around on Marvel Heroes a bit (honestly, the best thing the game has to recommend it is that I'll never get hooked) and I realized why I've found gaming so unsatisfying lately.  Okay, maybe I haven't found -the- reason.  There's always a grand thesis and this probably isn't it.  But I think it's one strong reason.

Where the hell did the true sandbox MMO get to?  I'm not talking about a world where you can do anything at all.  Those are rare and always over-promised.  Every game has rules and boundaries.  I'm just talking about an online role-playing game where your character's life isn't written for you.  Every single MMO these days seems to have caught the same disease.  They are writing the games as though they were single-playing RPGs, and then just sticking everyone in the same world together.

Star Wars was completely schizophrenic this way.  In order to interact with any other player, I had to pretend that my own personal plotline wasn't happening.  Just became the savoir of the entire Jedi order?  Hey!  Me too!  And I even have a lizard dude that looks just like yours.  Funky...  GW2 is a little better.  At least there are variants on the same themes.  But when you cut it up, there are still thousands of other players living the same story I am.  Not just cookie-cutter versions of the same skills.  That I can deal with.  I can even live in a world where everyone is wearing the same stupid robe.  I just can't stand living with the stupidity that we are all living our own single-player RPG lives and then interacting based on ... what?  Everything that's put into the single-player story actually gets in the way of the MMO story.  I can't even believe it anymore.

Marvel, btw, takes this to a ridiculous extreme.  That's part of what helped me see it.  200,000 Hulks all running around interacting with NPCs who treat each one as THE Hulk and then they look at each other and just pretend it isn't happening.  Not that I expected Marvel to be roleplay based.  But only an attitude towards game design that's become totally bent could even imagine this is a good idea.

Absurdly, I'm going to give a shout out to League of Legends.  Slender though the game story may be, and even though everyone may be playing copies of the same character, our actual PCs are presented as summoners who only USE the characters in the arena.  And in tournament play only one of each can be there at a time.  So this has, believe it or not, the most supportable individual non-spoon-fed character identity of any game I've seen in some time.

I'm optimistic about Wildstar.  I know, I've had optimism before.  I feel like all of gaming has become about anticipation these days, then some short-lived satisfaction, then more anticipation for something else.  But if nothing else, I hope I get to just play some random person in their stupid cartoon world.  I hope I get to be a nobody who may, possibly, become a somebody.  Or not.  I want to have the freedom to die in obscurity.  I don't want every NPC I meet to talk about my grand destiny.  I want to drop down on the planet and have someone say "get the f**k out of my way, and I don't care who you are."  When did we lose the sense that it was okay to organize a game that way?  When did we water down the genre so much that every player needs to be told at every turn they are awesome, rather than facing the challenge of simply achieving something for themselves and knowing they've achieved it?

/rant off

[Corsair]

I have to agree Vil.

In Rift, my character was a denier. What I mean by that is my concept revolved around this notion, "Haven't all of you wondered why we seem to have this similar rebirth experience? We're being manipulated. We're dupes. We still have to try to fight off the forces of darkness...but I want to know what's really going on here". Yet at the same time, I didn't want to go at that too aggressively, as some folks are probably enjoying their chosen one experience just fine thank you.

That was the core of my character for no other reason that as a player I couldn't connect with the notion every other player was having the exact same experience. Then we would all gather and fight off the darkness, each avoiding mentioning that every single one of us was, "The Chosen One".

This is why old school EQ is still near and dear to my heart. (And it isn't just because it was my "first love" of MMO's.) Blocky graphics and all, you had to pretty much make your own narrative, with little interference. Designers now assume they MUST make it for you. (And the burden is on you to ignore it if you wish.) But ignoring is hard to do when so much of the game revolves around this story thread, where you are the or one of the very few most important beings in the universe. SWTOR, Rift, Guild Wars...yeah, a pretty common thread. (Vanguard was better about this.)

Maybe EQNext will return us a bit of control over our narrative, without having to set aside most of the scripted quest content to do so. With a big world to wander that isn't quite as linear. Maybe Wildstar is the thing. Have to wait and see. Maybe most folks won't have half-finished the game in beta even!

[PinkRose]

Well said (as always) and well noted.

[Askari]

Yeah, I have to turn that part of my brain off when I play these games. The example I like to think of when contemplating this subject is the faction system in original EQ. Players' actions could dictate what quests, or even what NPCs they had access too.

In EQ1, I was mighty proud of myself when my High Elf, Tunare-worshipping Enchantress could walk into Oggok unmolested... without using "Illusion: Ogre".

It didn't matter one bit to the gameworld or to my elite capabilities... I just got joy out of freaking out ogre newbies and having access that was hard-won. I enjoyed having her fish in Neriak showing her true high elvish form (although she was never able to get too close to the Spire of Innoruuk, because they could sense her Tunare worship). That kind of thing led to some very fun roleplay.

Them: "You can't be here!"
Me: "You are obviously mistaken." or "Perhaps I'm not here at all. Have you been drinking?"

I loved when Scars of Velious came out and you had to pick to support either the frost giants or the coldain. I like decisions with consequences... and that one had pretty big consequences to content access.

That's what rang so hollow for me in SWTOR. The battle between light and dark side is so integral to that universe, but the choices and consequences seemed so irrelevant. I would have been so much more enthralled by SWTOR if there hadn't been two hard factions, decided at character creation. If you had started out neutral... and NPC's reactions to you, the quests/missions that were offered to you, changed as your actions moved you towards light or dark... that would have been engaging! I know... because it was engaging in the KOTOR games.

I'm playing Neverwinter at the moment and the main solo questing that can take you from intro to max level is totally on rails. No faction. No decision. No consequences. It's fun, but not very engaging. About the only decisions that are affecting things are that I get 3-4 missions specifically for being a half-orc and 3-4 missions specifically for being a Guardian Fighter. Decisions made at character creation, not during gameplay.

Picking a deity gives me access to a title. As does picking a city/place of origin. Boring. I don't even remember what I picked.

[Gith]

There is a problem with this though. Every game has to have a point. I guess you could make a game like The Secret World where you are just a goon that belongs to a group doing stuff and just run it like that indefinitely without your character ever being aware of the greater scheme of things and hence not responsible or the centre of attention in any way like we all were in SWTOR being the Major of Havoc Squad or the saviour of the Jedi Order, etc.

I guess you could run a Fallout style game that is completely sandbox and simply remove the overarching plot so you are simply doing missions all the time and focus more on individual development like KOTOR did and see where on the spectrum your character ends up and from there start developing content dependent on your alignment/faction choices? And then have the factions go at each other but in true WarHammer 40k style there is never an end to the conflict and all victories are short lived as the war wages on. That would eliminate the faction choice during character creation and make it more fluid and dependent on gameplay style as well as make us less important and hence more individual.

I don't really know the solution to the problem but I agree it is a problem.

I hope to romp around in Wildstar as well and have fun in a cartooney universe but I see the game being like SWTOR as we all become the leader of the Rebels and leading them to victory etc. It would be better if the conflict was unceasing and by the "end game" nothing had really been resolved but we knew about the Eldan and all that stuff.

[Alirrin]

I don't think a game has to have to have a "point".  EQ2 was my first MMO, and it didn't have an overarching point or purpose. You created a character, and in the course of visiting different places you were asked to do things, and you could choose to do them or not. Some of those things would change your standing with various factions which might open up different possibilities. Your character might have similar abilities to someone else's, but there wasn't a storyline *about* you that you had to pretend wasn't happening in the roleplay. 

It was common to log in, get to a quest NPC and call out to the guild chat, "Hey this person needs help, is anyone free to join me?" And you could roleplay about why you were helping them, and insert yourselves as a group into their story.

I really enjoyed that aspect, and was also wondering why it seems to have been replaced. Games these days are more "Massively Single-Player" in feel.

[Gith]

Well, hopefully it will swing the other way sometime in the future. Perhaps Wildstar will just be the Rebels and the Dominion going at each other (sounds familiar) without an actual ending but simply more and more discovery about Nexus and the Eldan. That would be cool. Watch the world grow as both factions establish themselves on the planet and throw in some native to the planet factions that you can earn points with (that part I doubt will be included).

I really hope you don't end up the Rebel Leader and lead them to absolute victory over the Dominion.

[Rumze]

From what Ive read and researched on Wildstar, there actually isn't too much lore given out as you are leveling up. The main story lore chunks come out at level cap - a sort of elder game for lore and story enthusiasts and its nearly all solo or small group based content.

Im not sure how it will present story wise, but I hope its pretty open ended and with the different paths and some ability to effect the world through them.

Scientist can unlock things like special buffs that let you into areas you couldn't go before, explorers unlock new areas - mini racing games, soldiers set off dynamic events while settlers work with each other to build up hubs .

Its been hinted that the intent of the game is open ended story telling, so while there is a theme park feel, it shouldn't be too on rails. There is no personal story like in swtor or gw2. Its more on the lines of wow's story I believe.

Time will tell and I could be proven wrong. But Im looking forward to the game at least for the housing. Being able to build not just a character avatar but a house would be awesome and give me some sort of end game. 

[Vilidius]

Thanks for the encouragement all.  I don't know if we've solved anything, but it was nice to chat.  I'm especially amused by Gith's answer - not because he's wrong but just because I know he's a comparatively young member of the guild (it's ridiculous how old you can be and still be "young" for Saga) and he's newish to MMOs.  Actually, I'm saddened by his answer, but it isn't his fault.  He's just responding to what he knows.

Long experience has shown that gamers will find goals.  They don't need to be force fed them.  Yes, it's sometimes fun to play a game on rails and just work at beating the challenges in front of you.  But that's why single-player games come with beginnings and endings, and we easily think in terms of "beating" the game and then moving on to the next single-player game.  That isn't what any MMO strives to be, however.  Every game wants to be the next WOW (okay, even I'll admit it's the most successful game out there) and you just can't be WOW if the game is all about linear objectives.

One thing I AM encouraged by in Wildstar is the concept of paths.  The actual implementation may or may not suck.  But it isn't the system that has me enthusiastic so much as the philosophical justification for it.  In some dev video somewhere they talked about how the path system is based on the Bartle Test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_Test) and this shows they are at least aware that gamers can and will "win" in their own self-defined ways.

Just for the sake of debating the position, for those who played Star Wars, I can't imagine there is more than one player in 50 who really felt they had "won" the game when they finished their character's single-player storyline.  The true "end game" starts when the personal story ends.  Hell, in a lot of ways it's a glorified tutorial.  No MMO is going to keep any single-player story coded and progressing through expansion after expansion.  No game could ever churn out content like that.  I can barely remember what the hell my story line even was.  I DO remember PvP with the Saga team.  I remember Hutt Ball.  I remember breaking the game a bit with one build (which they then nerfed) and I remember mastering the marketplace.  And I certainly remember some fun Saga events, including some Holomatrix hunts that were really fun, especially the one on the fleet.  Wow.

So yeah, I think gaming got stupid at some point.  In an effort to appeal to a wider non-MMO gamer base and what they expert (a linear story, where they are told what their character wants to achieve) games have become self-defeating.  The draw in is easier, but the retention is much harder.

Truly, to any who may doubt me, it didn't used to be like this.  It doesn't HAVE to be like this.  What I always loved about EQ is that the game was filled with a whole lot of things to do but literally nothing you HAD to do.  In fact, it was typical of ubers to say "you need to do this, you need to have that, etc." and once in a while it was true, but often it wasn't.  And non-uber achievers delighted in challenging those assumptions. 

Bah.  I've written enough already.  But yeah, I'll play Wildstar.  If nothing else, I can kick the s**t out of another economy.

[Jezerai]

I totally agree, Vilidius.  In Starwars I had to ignore my character's storyline entirely in order to roleplay and that is just schizophrenic.  It was either that or somehow try to mesh the fact that a quarter of the guild and world in general had the exact same personal history as me.  Between that and it being ridiculously easy to level up I just burn out of the game too fast.  Starwars, GW2, Rift all had the same problems for me.

[Rumze]

I want to add something about wildstar that I forgot to cover.
Cross path synergies.
Basically it means that if you partying with someone who has a different path then you, then you can tag along to experience some of their path content or work together to unlock something bigger. Example: Scientist solves a puzzle that leads to a room which has a soldier holdout. Successful completion of the holdout may unlock a jumping puzzle that allows you as a group to take part but needs the explorer to occasionally go on ahead and flip a switch so you can continue ( but cant do without the explorer ).

Very much a working together thing which I look forward to.

[Vilidius]

Well, at least there's enthusiasm for Wildstar here, anyway.  Hopefully it's as sandboxy as it appears.  And I just tried to make a joke about how we're obviously going with the Dominion, but I failed badly.  The Exiles are so obviously Saga I can't even imagine a debate.  Sometimes our chaotic good alignment conflicts with a game's dynamic such that chaos is on one side while good is on another (see Rift for the worst case of that) but Wildstar is right up our alley there.  I can't think of another recent game where one faction was so obviously Saga.  That's something too. 

[Gith]

Iunno what you are talking about Vilidius ... I am so going Dominion. Sexy fem-bot for the win!

So perhaps it is time for the powers that be to throw up a Wildstar forum section since the game is supposed to be out this year sometime? Beta is running as we speak. See how many people are interested and what paths people want to play, classes, etc.

Settler looks interesting but I am not sure how it will work other than building temporary stuff. The example above required the other three but how will settlers be used on the fly for random content like that? Need a settler to build a bridge in a room opened by another path?

And I have been around for 3 years or so. That is a long time for a guild. That is longer than most guilds last :p

[Mixxi]

Actually, I'm already having an amazing gaming experience, and I'm really sad that most of you guys aren't sharing it. The stories, characters, and adventures are the best I've ever had, even counting FV's community. Keyes (my Guardian main) is involved in several player-driven stories, working with some very good players to tackle challenging content (shakes a fist at Giganticus Lupicus), and having a blast with a community of talented, funny people. I'm about to add yet another facet to that world by starting to participate in a Skype-based, dice-rolling RP system that uses those same characters and GW2 in-game presence.

I know you guys are all looking for the next great thing, but I've found it already in a group of flexible, creative RPers and players over on Tarnished Coast. It's all about what the players are willing to make of a game.

So, while you're waiting on Wildstar, I'd love to reintroduce some of you to Tyria (now with mysterious air pirates).

[Rumze]

Im sometimes sad I stopped playing at what seems like the week before this happened. Ah well.
Ive tried logging back into the game but it just gives me this sad feeling and I end up logging off at the character screen. I have to wait a while before trying to get back into gw2.

[Mixxi]

Would it help, Rumze, if I told you that our last run of Ascalonian Catacombs was a Disney show-tune run? Our necro is an amazing player (level 28 fractals) and terrific RPer but also a professional singer. It started with him channeling his "innocent Disney hero" voice, and then each fight ended up requiring a musical score. Apparently this is not the first time this has happened, according to his husband. It's great when the only barrier to kicking the mob's ass is that you're laughing too hard to see the screen properly.

The new storyline is also great (a hard-boiled mystery set in Lion's Arch/Divinity's Reach). Here's Keyes (my coincidentally hard-boiled private eye/guardian main) meeting up with a contact:  [Imgur](http://i.imgur.com/zWwuZQC.jpg)

I'm on as Keyes Harkner most evenings. We bounty/trek/rush on Wednesdays and Fridays around 7:15 pm PST if anyone wants to try out those things.

And...I'm probably going to try Wildstar with you guys, but I just can't see RPing in it.

[Rumze]

Old topic but happily playing gw2 when I can.Finished getting my alts to 80 so happily log on and play around.

Im really looking forward to wildstar housing customisation on a side note.