There havent been any Sandbox MMO’s in over 12 years to be very honest about the deal… Everything has been endless WoW clones because of WoW’s success…
Eve, Wurm Online and now Black Desert Online are the closest… Wurm is a true sandbox but its also the most grindy game ever made making Korean games look like easy mode…
Eve is a bad hybrid with lore question and endless repetition…
And Black Desert Online is another hybrid with a cash shop the ruins the game!
No you can’t claim that Sandbox’s are a bad model because there simply hasnt been any made for a long time because of the overwhelming success of the ThemePark MMO World of Warcraft…
A lot of the things you can do in a group you can do solo. It just takes longer.
You don’t necessarily need specific content made for one over the other aside from things like Titans (which are group oriented anyways and are akin to dungeons or raids).
You can build a city by yourself. You can gather any resource in the game by yourself. You can run a shop by yourself. You can explore by yourself. You can craft by yourself. I am probably missing a few other things but those are the main things you can do with a group or by yourself.
You can also do all of those things in a group a lot more effectively than by yourself.
This game lets you do pretty much anything by yourself or with a group. You have that choice and option available to you. The only thing I think is a valid discussion to talk about, for this discussion, is simply having just more stuff to do both as group play and solo play.
I will have to agree with a lot of the points already made.
1- The developers should not incentivize one solo over group or group over solo. This game is played by people when they have time. It is hardly fair to penalize the person that cannot play due to work schedules, school, or other real life activities that might prevent them from being online when the bulk of people normally are.
2 - Drops from mobs and resources gathered should be the same no matter if a group is engaging in the activity or a single person. Groups already create higher level meteors so that is already given a bonus. That being said a level 2 meteor should and does produce the same mobs and drops for one or a group.
3 - The new skill tree is already creating more incentive to interact. It is much harder (if not impossible) to do what you might want with a single skill set or character. Once people have time to create and level alts or add skill sets this does diminish, but newer players might see some benefit to interacting, at least from a resource acquisition perspective. This is not something I like, but it is a fact.
4 - If people want more social interaction they can join or form a guild. This will probably mean more when the developers add some specific functionality, but even now there are several guilds where those that want to interact on builds, hunts, mining, crafting, or just chatting can do this. I played solo for quite a long time, but I am enjoying working with the guilds.
Honestly, I think you have to have a strong solo game first, even despite the fact that it’s an MMO. Two reasons for that:
Player Behavior - Weird as it seems, a slight majority of MMO players across various games and across many years have confessed that they prefer to solo most of the time. I’ll have to look it up if someone wants the source, but I read a really bizarre article about 5 years ago where they studied this… I doubt human behavior has changed much in 5 years. But I can tell you with 100% certainty that I’m one of them. Just as an example, I quit WoW after I got to Onyxia because I didn’t have the patience for 20 people to figure out how to do their jobs correctly on the same day, at the same time, in the same location.
The Ecosystem - When you have a player experience that relies solely or almost solely on the availability of other players, changes in population and player behavior can have growing, catastrophic effects on the game. The “death spiral” right before a successful MMO rapidly becomes unsuccessful is a good example of this. Wild economic fluctuations, ever-lengthening queues for anything that requires one, and that awkward feeling of emptiness in what are supposed to be high-traffic locations in-game are usually the first symptoms.
This has always been the main point i have always been trying to make… even before we knew that release was just around the corner… the traffic in this game has been in decline for ~12 months now
I know - let me explain what i mean (if i can) please
Not that i have talked to any one in game about it so i cannot speak for anyone else
This is just what i have personally noticed and think…
Not much activity on steam at all/Update news there is very few and far between/Devs and Mods and Leaders did not/have not replied there often at all/pleople are still begging to know when release is (even though we have an official date) want to ask how good it is and what its actually all about (this is the steam side of it)
IN-GAME players have heavily been in decline… i can agree to and accept this now because we have an official date so a lot of people are burnt out as i have seen some people say and will come back in force (including new people) on rlease… But also… (IMHO) because the game seems to favor SPECIFIC players COUGH BUILDERS!!! COUGH (and groups and etc - BUT this is an old argument so enough said)
The skil list is far too rigorous (again IMHO) - remember when it was virtually free-form and everyone loved it? (why was it ever changed in the first place anyway?)
Not nearly enough content (currently) which is also understandable because its not going to be the universe we have on release (as long as a huge ammount of content is available upon release this will be ok - But…,. if its the same as we have now for a while yet… people (at least the long standing guys) will begin to leave in huge numbers … IMHO)
I know i went off the original topic… but we are trying to figuere out how to please everyone in this post right? thats why this reply counts
You and I normally agree on moist things but I disagree that the game favors builders. Here is why
1 - lowest xp per hour worked seems to be building. I think hunting is first and then mining based on my personal experience.
2 - building is one of the few roles in the game that requires other roles. You cannot build without resources so you have to mine and gather. If you want more complex blocks and the tools to chisel or landscape you have to craft. You cannot buy without generating coin, so you have to craft, gather or mine in order to have something to sell for coin if you do not want to make everything yourself. A miner, gatherer, and hunter can sell what they collect and buy the appropriate tools. A Crafter can buy the resources and sell the finished product to generate coin. Only the builder has to engage I other activities in order to work in his/her chosen role. Sure you can do it with alts and skill sets, but what other role requires this in order to be successful?
Exactly, all the other professions generate resources or items to trade with that allow you to buy what you need as apposed to building which uses resources but you don’t end up with something that generates income or can be sold.
1 i am not any kind of builder
2 I see all these epic builds and just so assume
3 someone (no names) is heavily addicted and vastly Over Powered when it comes to building Eye-Roll
(point 3 is meant as LOLZ only i do not mean to offend)
Blockquote This has always been the main point i have always been trying to make… even before we knew that release was just around the corner… the traffic in this game has been in decline for ~12 months now
This is just not at all accurate…
You can look back at the numbers and see that the game has done nothing except increase in numbers… There has been a decline as of late due to summer and dare I say the whole impending wipe…
We’ll see what the numbers are next week. Gauging player numbers in a situation like this is non-conclusive due to the extenuating factors.
There are plenty of players that I know of that just didn’t want to play when they knew all their efforts would be reset at some point. Gauge numbers when the universe is permanent, it’ll garner better, more informative results.
It’ll depend if there’s enough new content, and then that goes back to which content should be prioritized.
I’m leaning towards not prioritizing group play or solo play, but instead the easiest, most time consuming parts of a game possible, like FISHING and FARMING, should quickly be added in first before raids. I’d argue a Colosseum PvP arena should be added before raids and boss battles too, but given what I’m reading about how poor combat is, I’m not sure there’s a point to that.
Farming should be it’s own skill tree, as well as Fishing, you should be able to skill up just as fast doing either, and people shouldn’t be capable of being a hunter, farmer, miner, and builder professionally all at once unless they are an extremely high level, so there’s an actual demand in the economy for Farmers and Fishers perhaps.
100procent true wipe even holding away the regulars
theres also a new wave off players recently
not very big
the first anoucement by square enix was the first big trigger
and before that the longtime without update
but release is a completly diferent beast
no knife 's hanging above our head
i dont look at numbers just at my hubs and beacons they tell me alot
wish i had a history on those beacons but im more into building than numbers
i know lots off players that cant handle the wipe and on release will become for sure loyal gamers
alot are on hold for this
when i say its been in decline… i am talking about over the past few months (since january) not just this summer… last year it was 40+ on most planets (it tells you at the sanctum when warping to a planet the current population) since Jan its been 35>20>15>4 etc) Now tell me why i am wrong? @Sulfurblade
@the-moebius this is mostly likely the reason then
the long time of updates vs…e veryone knew the wipe was comming soom ™
January had a relatively big spike in player base for the month and was maintained in Feburary then went up in March and April. Went back down in May, up a little in June, and started going down in July.
It’s been going down more towards the end of July and now in August mainly cause a lot of people don’t want to work on something that is going to get wiped and that they might not see again.
Even the average player numbers for each of those months reflects this too in many of those months.
It might not mean anything to you but this is data that we have publicly to look at and it is factual to how many people at peak times and average players are on during each month. It does mean something.
Why you don’t run across someone every 30 seconds is by and large a byproduct of a low player population and if that was to happen then we’d have a lot of other problems going on being discussed.
so it would be better to do release with fewer planets on start and add more when gamerbase expands our all at once what ya think?edit=actually just realized i want them all on release
i dont wonna be put with all the betapeople on a small group off planets
i want us to go populate the universe
but im more into building than numbers