Defining Sandbox: Part 1

Words are hard.  Here I am, a person who communicates continuously via the written word and is paid to craft words for others, and I know that despite my “expertise,” most of what I’ve written in my lifetime, if not all of it, can be misunderstood or interpreted from angles I did not imagine while writing.  Jargon is both a boon and a bane: although it allows people from the same fields to quickly communicate complicated ideas, people from different fields may use the same word to mean different things.  But the worst jargon comes in young fields, such as gaming criticism, where it seems assumed that “everyone knows” what it means without any discussion.

So have I justified talking about the meaning of the word “sandbox” in gaming and in the growing lexicon of mmo jargon?  Since I’m already writing this, I’ll go with the answer most convenient for me: yes.   So how do we define sandbox?  How is it being used out there?

Searching google for “define sandbox mmo,” the first relevant hit I come across is this hub page. The author, Tahamtan, equates sandbox games with freedom of choice.  He goes on to more details, including the claim that the players make the rules rather than developers, and specifics such as classless skill systems and customizable appearances, some of which I agree with and some seem optional at best and otherwise completely arbitrary.   I strongly agree with the freedom of choice bit, but I don’t think that’s enough detail to eliminate games that are commonly called theme parks.  I found a second blog post attempting to explain a personal definition of sandbox, but he focuses even more on the details than this first author.  And most of those details are lifted straight from UO.  UO is certainly a sandbox, at least everyone who has played it seems to think so, but I’m more interested in creating a definition of sandbox that includes any MMO generally agreed to be a sandbox (Ultima Online, SWG pre-NGE, Eve, Darkfall, Wurm Online, and such) while excluding any games generally agreed to be theme parks (WoW, Rift, Warhammer, etc.)

Sandbox games can certainly be said to depend on freedom of choice, but to what extent is freedom of choice limited in a theme park?   There’s a common argument about WoW that claims WoW offers choice despite generally being considered a theme park by most mmo bloggers and reviewers.  And it is certainly true that there are options available in WoW.  Although the most common path is to follow quests, players can choose to ignore the quests and grind mobs.  Players could also put together a regular group to crawl instances or exclusively use the dungeon finder and complete instances with PUGs.  At a certain point, though I cannot recall when, PvP becomes another viable option.

Similarly, WoW does allow for players to choose the zones they visit.  Once getting out of your racial start zone, there are frequently multiple options about where to go next.  There is not a single clear path that forces everyone to be in the same zone for the same level like there is in Forsaken World.  So with all these choices, why does the general consensus firmly place WoW in the theme park column?

Because all of these choices come with obvious limitations.  Although there are options about how to play, all of those options reach the same end: leveling your character and acquiring better equipment.  No matter how someone plays WoW, the goal remains the same.  Even when I imagine a player that gets joy primarily from exploration, visiting every in-game location still requires leveling up and getting new equipment.  Locations are designed for certain level ranges, and while there may not be something stopping a player from visiting higher level zones, players are not able to explore and survive unless they are in the right range for that zone.  The choice of where and how to level is governed by the character’s level throughout the game.  No matter what a player focuses on, leveling and new equipment will either be the end result or a necessary step along the way.

When I look at a sandbox, I find it more difficult to generalize all the goals with a single end as I have with WoW.  Although I have heard it said that the goal is still more power, the difference is in the definition of power.  In WoW, power will nearly always refer to character level and gearscore.  Some might describe power as the amount of gold they possess, but again this goal is governed by character level (higher levels acquire more gold and more valuable crafting materials) and just like character level, there is even a cap that forces players to cease pursuing gold as a game goal.

So far the difference between a sandbox and a theme park MMO seems related to choice, the nature of those choices, and the limitations placed on those choices.  This is far from the complete definition I’m searching for that clearly defines sandbox while excluding theme parks.  But this blog is the longest I’ve written so far, and if anyone is still reading I’m amazed and impressed.  Next, I will take a closer look at how “gaining power” is not a sufficient generalization for goals in a sandbox, or at the very least, how many different ways one can define “gaining power,” all while continuing to work toward a meaningful definition of sandbox.

No promises as to when, I still have a draft of WoW Hate Explained Pt. 1 to finish, and I started thinking about that months ago.

OGP: Obligatory Glitch Post & Invite Give Away

What can I say about Glitch that hasn’t already been said?  It’s a neat little game, and I can certainly say I’m really enjoying it.  I can almost make the claim that it’s currently my primary game.  It’s interspersed with bouts of Global Agenda and LoL, but otherwise, it really is my primary game right now.

But it’s definitely not for everyone.  Let’s take a look at some of the complaints I’ve seen in various comment sections around the internet:

1.  Potty humor

Ok, I only saw this one from one person, though I did see that one person post it in more than one place.  I’ll have to respectfully disagree.  While I have encountered at least one fart joke, such is far from the focus of the humor and not a common encounter.  Most of the humor is whimsical postmodern absurdity with subtle jokes based on gaming conventions.  For example, repeated actions earn various achievements, but these events will occur on numbers like 11, 17, 47, or 1001 rather than 10, 15, 45, or 1000.   There’s also a good bit of mild innuendo: butterflies must be given massages before they can be milked.  Certainly that’s an intentional reference to the infamous “happy ending,” but anyone who gets worked up about butterfly sexuality should probably take a step back.

There’s no accounting for taste of course.  It’s fair to say that some people might be turned off by the humor.  But I think it takes a bit more sensitivity to such issues than most possess.

2. What’s the point?

This is the most common complaint by far.  Sometimes accompanied with the comment: “I found all I was doing was waiting for status bars to fill up.”  Of course, there are reasons to watch status bars fill — at the most basic level, is it not possible to dismiss World of Warcraft as nothing but “running around and waiting for ability timers to reset?”  I think it is, but that neither are actually fair descriptions of what there is to do in either game.

There are several points to Glitch.  For MMO players, most of them are only interesting if you particularly enjoy crafting.  When I was first playing, my goal was to unlock every recipe I could for a couple of skill trees.  Of course, such is a finite goal.  If I keep playing, I can eventually unlock the recipes for every skill tree.  But since getting a good number of advanced recipes in a few areas, I’ve switched my goal to selling items in auctions to other players.

For me, that economic goal can occupy me forever.  But that’s still not all there is to do in Glitch.  Usually, there are Street Projects.  Street Projects allow players to gather items to build new streets, which are the game zones, thus expanding the world of Glitch.  Due to a much greater than anticipated response to the game, the initial Street Projects were fast tracked, to open more zones and spread out the population, and due again to that unexpected demand, they are not putting more out until they have created a new system that increases the number of players involved in each project.  But there was Street Projects, and there will be again.

There’s also an endgame option, of sorts.  Players that have the piety skill can band together to drive off the Rook, a giant bird that attacks streets that have been neglected.

For such a simple looking flash game, there’s a lot of depth to Glitch.  I’ve been playing for almost two weeks, and I still haven’t explored much to do with alchemy or tinkering.  There are a number of house models I can upgrade to still.  And there are a lot of players looking for my goods on the market.

I still have two invites to give away.  I don’t think they are actually necessary to join the game, but I believe without one there is a waiting period of anywhere from a day to a week.  If anyone wants one, let me know in the comments.

1/23/2012 ETA: I am out of invites, but I do keep getting search engine hits with terms such as “glitch invite.”  Getting into the game without an invite should be possible though there may be a waiting period between creating an account and actually being allowed in the game.  I just created an account for an extra email of mine and will report back once I know how long it took that account to be accepted.

Whoops, I lied

I swear I really had no intention of playing City of Heroes after briefly checking it out yesterday.  However, I’ve been dying to try out Going Rogue content since it released last year.  The release was right around the time I became aware my tenuous financial situation was much less temporary than I had hoped, and rather than dish out $30 or so on top of my $15 subscription fee, I quit the game.  But shortly after making a post yesterday, I realized that for only $15, I could go do exactly what I would have done on GR’s release day — log in and create a Praetorian and level him or her up to 20.

As someone who subscribed more than once for varying lengths of time, I’m just short of my Tier V Paragon Rewards which would unlock the premium classes: Controller and Mastermind.  I have auction house access for life, but I fall quite a bit short of Tier VII which would let me use the invention system for life.  That means my main’s primary build is useless — some 90% of his enhancements are inventions.  I was disappointed by this at first, but I’ve figured out that a 30 day invention license only costs about a buck.  I figure I can easily play a month or two leveling up some alts, and when I eventually purchase access to the Going Rogue post-level 20 alignment system, I can use the leftover points from yesterday’s purchase and this future purchase to unlock inventions for a month. If I’m still playing after that, I can occasionally purchase points whenever I want to use one of my level 50s.

So my f2p gaming hasn’t exactly been free to play, but putting CoH aside, let’s recap.  About two months ago I spent $15 to get Elite Agent status in Global Agenda.  That’s a one time purchase that need never be repeated, so I think of that as the box price.  So I’ve spent $15 on this former subscription game for two months of enjoyment, and theoretically need not ever pay again and can continue to enjoy it indefinitely.

I’ve been playing LotRO for about a month and a half, and I’ve spent $7.99 there.  I’ve also spent little to no time with the content that unlocked and probably have another month or more before I do clear those quests.

So at the end of October, I should be looking back on three months of gaming, playing an MMO and one pseudo-MMO for the first two months and adding a second MMO for the final month.  Two games for three months and one game for one month for a grand total of $38.  If these were still subscription games, this same experience would have cost me $105 (at $15 per month per game).  I’m pretty damn satisfied and pleased with my penny pinching.

Sure, the limitations these games can place on free players may occasionally be inconvenient,  but I can address each limitation when my level of involvement in the game, and time invested, justifies it.  A few months from now, I may buy a few months of LotRO VIP to unlock the extra bags and character slots.  That’s a maximum of $30 (though there are a lot of deals on game time cards that are still floating around the retail world so it probably won’t even be that), so potentially, after three to four months, I will have paid only $38 and just be starting my two months of VIP time.  That’s a damn good value — I have a lot of trouble ever picturing myself dishing out $60 and then agreeing to a subscription ever again.  At least, not when it comes to a theme park — some 90% of time in such games is dedicated to leveling alone, and I’m not surrendering massive amounts of cash to be all alone in a world full of other people who are also all alone.

I’m really not all impressed with my fellow gamers for their willingness to pay monthly fees for massively single player games.  Somewhere some marketing guy or gal is laughing all the way to the bank, telling friends about how they convinced us to both buy and rent their product simultaneously.

Freedom!

Mel Gibson upon hearing the news that City of Heroes/Villains is now free to play

City of Heroes/Villains: Freedom formally launched today.  As CoX is the only theme park game to hold my attention for more than three or four months, I’ve been looking forward to this update.  I had downloaded the new launcher over the weekend, and I finished updating the game this afternoon.  I found that, perhaps due to the number of unlocks I’d used, perhaps due to how long I’d subscribed, I had the option to unlock 7 characters on my main server, Infinity, and 3 global unlocks, which I’ll likely use on Infinity as well.

I unlocked my main, my healer, and the last few characters I remember working on.  I have around 17 toons on that server, but most aren’t even level 10.  I just enjoy playing with power set combinations and the character creator options.

I realized right away that what I’d prefer to be doing is the content from Going Rogue.  It’s not the only content that has been added since I left, but the free content is all old news to me.  It’s not too expensive to unlock GR in the store — it works out to be about the same as purchasing the expansion box.  But I’m not really prepared to invest in the game yet.

Seriously, there are too many cheap options available right now.  League of Legends: Dominion launched, and I actually still haven’t updated the game and played it yet.  I’ve had some really intense PvP sessions in Global Agenda, and I’ve started leveling my robotics agent as well as my medic for a little role variety.  I’m still enjoying LotRO, and spent 8 dollars there for content I’ve barely even touched.  I’d like to spend the $30 or so to grab Going Rogue, but I can’t really justify it right now.  Perhaps in a month or two I’ll put LotRO on the back burner for CoX, but by then Fallen Earth and Star Trek Online will be in the mix as well.  So I’ll probably just dip in to CoX and work on leveling a lowbie or two on occasion, but I’ve really already promised my time to GA, LotRO, and LoL.

It’s a free to play smorgasbord, and I can only eat so much at a time.

A Quick Reaction to CCP and the World of Darkness Reveals

First I want to go on record and say that I think the monocle is absolutely hilarious.  I think people angry about the monocle are pretty hilarious too.   Whether or not there are monocles available to purchase and whether or not anyone purchases them has absolutely no impact on how I would personally play the game.  Companies try to make more money, it’s what they do.  If someone’s willing to buy it, I don’t care if they provide it, as long as it doesn’t affect game play.  So I have no problem with CCP, and I thank them for the entertainment monoclegate has provided me.

I’d also like to thank them for their recent news on the World of Darkness MMO.  Specifically, I’d like to thank them for targeting fans of WoD setting games rather than fans of the MMO genre.  With the possibility of permadeath in exceptional situations, and a nod to the oddballs of the role playing world, the LARPers, along with mentions of focusing on player driven story lines while asking gamers to remain in character, CCP has said they care more about the fans of the source material than they do for high subscription numbers.

I’m not much of a role player in MMOs.  I often play on RP or RP Encouraged servers because I find stumbling on to role players to be pleasant.  I don’t personally have a complex character in mind or desire to participate in much role play activity, but I’m willing to play along now and then and confine my local chat remarks to things that fit the game world.  I suspect that CCP will ease the role play burden by supplying tools to create activities, jobs, quests, etc.

But I also suspect it will be a long time before any playable build of this game will be available to prove their claims.

In the meantime, cheers to CCP for planning something that isn’t the same as everything else.  Again.

WoW Hate: Introduction -or- I’m sorry but you’re a doody-head

I usually do not have difficulty stretching my mind to the perspective of another person when I actually try. Imagining the perspective of someone who has enjoyed WoW nearly continuously since launch, however, is a difficult exercise for me.  Or at least it’s difficult to imagine that perspective without making a bunch of negative assumptions about the person.

Let me be clear: I find myself thinking WoW players are stupid.  Or that they’re children.  Or both.  I know this isn’t fair; I know it isn’t universally true.  Yet it’s my instant reaction to articles and comments that rave about, support, or defend the game.

It’s something I actually try to suppress, but it comes through on bad days.

Over a few posts, I’m going to look at my hatred for WoW.  I’m not going to bash it, necessarily — I’m going to recall as much as possible of my two experiences as a WoW tourist and attempt to explain how my opinion of WoW and its players was formed.

News in the Key of F2P

Free-to-play has been making some headlines lately — some not-so-lately, but I wasn’t paying attention when they happened.

The big story of the day is all about Philip Reisberger, CEO of Bigpoint, the company behind the free-to-play, browser-based Battlestar Galactica MMO.  I can’t really comment on the game.  I signed up for it once, played through a bit of the tutorial or intro or whatever they prefer to call it, and was not impressed at all.  I can’t put my finger on why—if there was ever a reason, I don’t remember it—so it could be a wonderfully fun little game.  It’s just not for me.

Indisputable Truth: Everyone with a goatee is evil

But if there was ever a chance of Battlestar Galactica making the list of my F2P Quest, that chance flew the coop when I read excerpts from an interview with Mr. Reisberger published today by Next Gen.  I’m left wondering if the man has ever played an online multiplayer game other than one of his company’s products, and if he has ever spent a single moment absorbing the concerns of veteran internet gamers.  Plus, he has a goatee.  

Here’s what Mr. Reisberger had to say that got him some attention:

There are millions, hundreds of millions of people willing to invest even though they aren’t obliged to. The crucial part of the design is not having to invest, but wanting to. Most people in the Bigpoint universe don’t ever pay, but if they want to pay, don’t just offer hats – offer them something that will help them. 

If selling an advantage ruins the game, you haven’t done the balancing right…EA and Ubisoft, for example, they’re both trying, but they’re not really there yet.  It’s a delicate balance, though, and that’s why I love my game designers. All of them have understood how to do this. If you have a sophisticated approach to free-to-play games, in the end you can monetise everything. [sic]

When I first read this, I was absolutely floored.  I can’t think of a single advantage that can be purchased for money that would not ruin the game, by which I mean permanently shift the balance so that skill becomes secondary to the amount of actual currency invested, and on the other hand, I can’t think of anything in a cash shop that does not ruin a game that grants any advantages.

I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked.  This man’s well-being and future potential to purchase facial hair trimmers rests entirely on his ability to convince people to spend money on his game.  It does not surprise me that he wants to maximize sources of income — it simply irritates me that he expects the gaming community to believe the insanity he has sold to himself and his staff.  He convinces himself by cherry-picking his examples: he clearly mentions EA’s refusal to give an outright advantage to those that pre-order Battlefield 3 as a failure to monetize but neglects to mention the incredible growth and healthy profits obtained by League of Legends, a free-to-play game that stubbornly refuses to sell power but does fine without monetizing everything.  Also, did I mention the goatee?

In other, slightly outdated, free-to-play news,  I somehow missed that my MMO guilty pleasure, City of Heroes, will be switching to a freemium (free-to-play with multiple subscription options) model when they drop Issue 21 — somehow, this news escaped my attention until a few weeks ago despite that it dropped in May or June.  Fallen Earth set a date of October 12th for its own freemium conversion.  And Star Trek Online has announced similar plans and released details of what features will be available to free-to-play customers, though they have not yet set an official conversion date.

These three games will definitely be added to my f2p quest.

As for news on me, I’m currently playing Deus Ex most often, but for online gaming I am still occasionally popping in to LoL and Global Agenda, have started testing the waters in Pirates of the Burning Sea, and have set aside my initial dislike for LOTRO to give it another whirl.  I’m actually enjoying it — I wouldn’t want to pay a subscription for a story driven theme park, but I have no objection to having limited fun that costs me nothing.  At some point, I may even pick up a few months of VIP, perhaps around level 20.  In the meantime, I kind of like running around the Shire doing quests without feeling rushed to reach the level cap and play the “real” game.  Perhaps SW:TOR isn’t as bad as I thought — though I still don’t think a single player story is worth a monthly fee.

Forsaken World — Game play

It’s taken longer to get to this post than I imagined.  But that’s actually not a bad thing — there’s been a glut of paid writing on my plate that took priority.  I’d much rather be playing games and writing about them, but for some reason, the people who send me bills expect me to pay them.  It’s quite rude of them, really, but I’m told it’s standard operating procedure and not actually personal.

Even before I had responsibilities to fulfill, I found myself thinking about this post and not knowing what to write.  So much of the game play is exactly what MMO players are already used to — start an autoattack and trigger abilities when they are ready.  Most of the classes I tried out had some mechanic to add a little flavor to each class.  The bard was probably my favorite of these — each ability is a different chord and hitting a C-D-C combination grants a buff to attack and damage.  I only brought my bard up to level 7 so did not discover if there are other “chords” leading to other buffs as the class advances, but I found it an amusing little twist on the standard mechanics.

But other than the attempt to put twists onto old familiar mechanics and, of course, that the game can be played without making a purchase, there is very little I can say about the game that is positive.  It’s incredibly linear.  There are three starting zones: one for humans and dwarves, one for elves and stonemen, and one for the forsaken (vampires, basically, though more Twilight than Nosferatu).  However, once your character reaches level 10, it’s off to the game’s main city, and as far as I can tell, everything is identical from there.  There is a main quest line, and it MUST be followed.  Must, must, must.  Choosing to go off the main quest line is only viable if you have no wish to craft — job points are only rewarded from progressing this quest line.  There are side quests and “gear instances” available — inevitably the main quest will pause until you can reach the required level for the next step, and the side quests fill in that blank.

The game issues characters their first mount when they reach level 20, but even the free mount is more frustrating than anything.  It only lasts for a limited time, about 5 days.  And not 5 days of use, not 5 days of game time, but an absolute 5 days whether you log in or not.  I really can’t think of anyone that would be pleased by this mechanic — obsessive gamers might not notice it and might even obtain a faction mount (or purchase a cash shop mount) before that time runs out, but many people will have life interfere and log in only to find they’re back to being a pedestrian.  This happened to me — after obtaining my mount for my first character, a forsaken assassin, I started making alts and trying out other characters.  When I got back to the assassin, I had two hours to level from 21 to 30 or had to go without a mount.  I chose to try out a Protector, and ultimately, I chose not to think much about this game.

I believe that this game is good for young teenagers that have not played MMOs and do not have the option to play a subscription game.  But that is the only group I recommend it to.

Weekend Update

I decided to be a shut in this weekend and have divided my time between gaming, reading, and watching an Emilio Estevez movie marathon.  Don’t ask about the last one.   Ok, feel free to ask, but don’t expect an explanation that makes any sense.

As for the gaming, my time has been divided between Dragon Age II and running through the Fallen Earth 14 day trial.  I’m trying to get through the story in DAII without getting completely burnt out on the not so entertaining combat.  I actually dropped the difficulty down to casual — not because normal was difficult but with the game play shot and the story still interesting, casual lets me advance the story as quickly as possible and move on.  Maybe the next Dragon Age will have better combat.  Maybe not.

FE is so much better than it was at launch.  At least, I believe so — I base my opinion of its launch quality on word of mouth from a friend.  What I found, rather than an irritating mess, was an interesting character development system and a crafting system that could keep an obsessive crafter like me occupied for some time.  I don’t plan to subscribe though — I’d like to see what changes happen with the game when it switches to free to play.

An interesting side note, set a new record for hits in a day by trash talking SWTOR.  For the record, I actually do know what makes SWTOR so attractive to some people: it’s Star Wars, and not everyone is as turned off by the loot treadmill theme park style.  I just can’t take that style of end game without regretting my sub money anymore.  I suppose I need to stick to sandboxes and/or PvP centered games.  But I was in the mood to stir the pot and hoping, just a little, that somebody could explain their continued excitement to me.

I did grind out a bit more time on Forsaken World during the week, so I’ll continue that review later.

**Edit: I had completely forgotten that the beginning of the song Regulators was taken, in part, from the movie Young Guns. Let that now be the entire reason for my Emilio Estevez marathon.

What’s So Great About SWTOR?

Seriously.  In the early stages of hype and exaggeration, I was pretty excited myself.   Prior to any solid news releasing, when all I had to go on was Star Wars, Bioware, and MMO, the game seemed like it was going to be great.  I was excited enough that I remember a few weeks of geeking out like a teenager, installing old Star Wars games on my system and watching the movies, even the cartoon, for the umpteenth time.
Then actual information released about the game.  And clearly, it’s just another loot treadmill.  A fully-voiced story line is nice—I’m a writer and a lover of story—but it’s just nice, not AWESOME COOL SAUCE INCREDIBLY MIND BLOWING NEVER BEEN DONE!  I can’t even begin to count the number of times that the pacing of a game’s cut scenes slowed or ruined the entertainment value of a game to the point where I turned on the subtitles and skipped through dialogue as quickly as possible.  Perhaps it’s because I know I can read faster than someone can speak, and if I’m home alone but not playing a game, I’m reading a book.  I do have some young cousins who complain if even ten minutes of a movie is not in English, forcing them to read subtitles — maybe there are a lot of people adverse to reading while being electronically entertained no matter the reason or circumstance, but I hope that’s not a major motivation for many people.

And though the story lines are fully voiced, they are generic, single player story lines.  Every member of the same class will get the same story and absolutely nothing will change in the game world as a result of their choices.  I understand that you can bring friends along and that there are tasks in the game world not entirely limited to the class story lines, but I’m left with the question: So what?

Star Wars, with it’s magic and it’s complete disregard for real physics, has always been more fantasy than sci-fi.  I really look at this as Yet Another Fantasy MMO.  The combat mechanics are not new.  The crafting, while with a slight twist, is nothing new.  The PvP battlegrounds are embarrassingly pointless and repetitive.  Fully voiced story lines might help someone with adult ADD like me to level more easily, but since there’s no impact and the stories are relatively identical for each class, I’d get the same entertainment value by watching the cut scenes on youtube and I wouldn’t have to pay for it.

As for the “but it’s Bioware” argument.  That argument lost all weight with me after Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age II.   And my previous respect for Bioware’s story telling ability was lost with Dragon Age: Origins.  The game play was great, but the story was just a generic rehash of a bad fantasy novel.

So, SWTOR enthusiasts, what’s so great about SWTOR?

I might still write about Forsaken World today, but I was hoping to clarify this mystery first.