QotD: You Got a Little Sandbox in My Themepark

Here's a great definition of sandboxes and themeparks from Stargrace at MMOQuests.com

A sandbox MMO is a game that drops you into a player driven world. Players are given tools, and sand, and they get to make whatever they want with it. just like when you were a kid in your sandbox with a shovel and pail. You didn’t have much fancy stuff, but you had fun.

a non-sandbox MMO has already made all the fun for you, there is no sand, its a playground or a “themepark”. its not about you creating content, its about having fun with what the devs made. like when you used to climb around on the monkey bars or whatever.

I begin to realize that to some extent, sandbox is about building things, be it ships, houses, or whatever. While I agree that WoW is a Themepark, and more so with each ex-pac, I liked the way you could go wherever you wanted (at the appropriate level) in vanilla, (i.e., Dwarves in Teldrassil) if you were willling to make the effort.

I think that many themeparks have an element of sandbox in them. I like being directed a bit and as to where I should go to find some adventure, but I think being able to have a home base or outfit I can really call my own is great for developing a sense of character in the game.

Quotes of the Day, Plus Some Scattered Thoughts.

From Syp at Bio Break:

. . . sometimes you just want to do something different than head into the lava-spewing wild for the millionth time to cut through a wall of mobs just to click on a glowy.

And from Bhagpuss in a comment on Syp's post:

MMO designers seem to have a depressingly repetitive penchant for using the imminent destruction of the world as a backdrop . . . and still we find ourselves looking for overdue library books or dealing with gambling debts.

I want so much more roleplay than most MMOs I've played seem to offer. I am coming to the slow realization that they probably never will. I'm stuck on the XP treadmill, rather than making questing decisions based on "What is my character's motivation?" I don't need to be the fulfilment of some prophecy made by Salzman from Accounting. Nor do I always want be picking flowers in a bouquet for some guy's girlfriend.

On a much brighter note, my beloved fiancée pointed out in a discussion of our MMO playing habits that she and I have mostly bonded sitting side by side, playing WoW and (especially) Rift. She loves the games and loves playing with me. I am grateful for her, and will continue to play as long as she is interested, because I enjoy exploring worlds with her.

A Sense of Community

As Robert E Howard observed through his hero, Conan the Cimmerian, in 1933's "The Tower of the Elephant":

Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.

Poor Scary Booster. He is losing his faith in humanity, at the least the segment of humanity that plays MMOs. As the popularity of MMORPGs has grown exponentially over the past decade or so, the burgeoning community has evolved from a relatively small group of enthusiasts to a metropolitan throng of varied participants. Many of the original core are there, though many of those are disillusioned with the current state of the "community." I've touched on this topic before. In comments on that post, it was pointed out that elements of the original community were not particularly nice either.

The theory of the Monkeysphere has been a recurring theme in my mind and my blog of late; it answers many of the issues that Scary and other gamers have with the state of the community. With so many of us spread across multiple games and mostly hiding behind our computers, there are those who feel free to act out and ruin the enjoyment of others in various ways. At the very least, most players seem selfish in their quest to reach the pinnacle of whatever mountain they are climbing, caring little for the interests and welfare of those around them. Unfortunately, this is a condition of society at large, not just the gaming world.

That's not to say I have a cynical or even negative attitude about the gaming community. I am, however, a realist. Human nature is such that, as a community grows, it becomes more impersonal. That jerk on the road may have cut me off, but do I need to get my blood pressure up over it and develop a case of road rage? Unfortunately, I have gotten road rage on occasion. It has never helped the situation, nor made me feel any better. My last speeding ticket--after decades of not getting any--was the direct result of my own impatience with another driver. I need to remember that few people are there being malicious. They are just indifferent. I am outside their monkeysphere.

After a few years of being told that RPers in MMOs are weird (by some pretty weird people themselves, I might add), I decided to role characters on the RP shards of Rift and have thoroughly enjoyed it, finding fellow players of a like temperament and maturity. I have avoided the PUGs of the past, fearing the potentially negative experience, as I had occasionally in WoW. The few times I have been involved in PUGs in Rift, however, have been pleasant, with sufficient communication and coordination to make it worthwhile.

Scary, rather than let your spirit get beat down by the rude or indifferent players around you, be friendly, courteous, and helpful when you can. Like Marshall Eriksen of How I Met Your Mother, you may be in New York City, but you can keep your friendly small-town values and make someone else's gaming experience a little better for having encountered you. Marshall has a sense of community, even when everyone around him does not.

Light and Dark, Good and Evil

In most MMORPGs, morality has little actual influence on gameplay. My characters have done some questionable things in the pursuit of gear, money, or simply experience points. I have toyed with this dilemma in a few stories; but in-game, I continue to maim, kill, and steal without regard to the morality of the quest.

In Star Wars: The Old Republic, players will have the opportunity, regardless of faction, to accumulate light-side or dark-side points based on the dialogue decisions they make (and possibly the methods they use to complete quests, I haven't seen that demonstrated). Tobold started a discussion about morality in games, in which he expressed concern about the "judgements" developers place on certain actions within the context of the game. I can see his point that what the devs think is a moral/immoral choice may not correspond to what the individual player thinks. His specific example, though, is fairly cut-and-dry in the Star Wars Universe, however. "Good" Jedi do not participate in romances, because it leads to attachment, greed/jealousy, fear of loss, and the Dark Side. This comes not from BioWare, but George Lucas. Of course, in the real world, we generally have a different take on romance; at least amongst otherwise unattached individuals (that is, cheating is still frowned upon).

In Rift, the two factions have a difficult morality compared to the real (western) world. The religious fanaticism of the Guardians (including having Inquisitors to investigate/punish heretics) is, at the least, slightly unpalatable to many players. But the the Defiants and their unscrupulous use of souls and "technology" are also morally questionable. Not to mention that these two factions are wasting time and resources fighting each other, when their world is being torn apart by extra-planar beings bent on consuming it. So no real good guys or bad guys there. At least there is no real moral choice within the game that affects gameplay.

 Syp's response to Tobold included this insight:

I’m not a big fan of light and dark side gear and powers, since that will have a stronger influence on how people “game” the system. . . Wouldn’t it be really cool if BioWare makes these choices and stories so compelling that it tears people away from grinding light/darkside points to do what they want to do?

I agree with Syp that it would be nice to have "moral" choices in a game that mattered in the context of the story, without having the end reward be so obvious that, as a player, it only makes sense to maximize the number of moral or immoral choices. Unfortunately, I also agree with Tobold's subsequent response. The attachment of a meta-game goal (gear) to a "moral" choice will inevitably lead to min-maxing your choices in favor of that goal. WoW example: Aldor vs. Scryer in The Burning Crusade. Most players ended up making that choice based on the gear each faction offered, rather than an inherent RP motive.

This RP motive is something I mentioned in a discussion with MMOGC. (I keep going back to that post; see also her response.) I feel that if the RP component is strong enough, the abilities/gear-stats can be made more neutral without affecting gameplay. I have yet to see it.

Illustrations from Sillof's Workshop. If you haven't seen the site, go check it out. 
[EDIT] If you're curious, here is the WoWWiki page comparing the Aldor/Scryer rewards and by-class breakdown of player preferences.

Good and Evil in the Real World

I got involved in the debate over GameStop's removal of a coupon for Onlive from copies of Deus Ex: Human Revolution on Twitter yesterday and today. Since this is my blog, this is where I get to have the final say. I probably won't gain any friends or readers by saying I think the majority of gamers whining about how GameStop is TEH EVULS for this move are completely on the wrong side of the debate, and don't even really have a leg to stand on. Gamers are a whiny bunch in general, seeming to take every game-development and business decision in the industry as a personal affront. Seriously, y'all are almost as bad as the sports nuts talking about how "we" won or lost the game, when none of them were on the field or court. At least I have yet to hear of video gamers rioting, the way some sports hooligans have. Now I have bemoaned the occasional change to gameplay; but ultimately, if I don't like a game or product or store, I just stop playing or purchasing there.

GameStop made a legitimate business decision to remove competitor advertising from products they are selling in their stores--advertising they were not initially aware of when receiving the shipments. The manufacturer/publisher, Square Enix backed them up:

"Square Enix respects the right of GameStop to have final say over the contents of products it sells and to adjust them where they see fit in accordance with their policies."

Many Tweeps think the removal of the coupon constitutes product tampering or outright theft by GameStop against their customers. It was even suggested that they could/should have put stickers on the boxes indicating the removal. I have a question for someone who knows: Was the coupon advertized as part of the package, either in promotional material or on the box itself? If not, then it is a bonus that GameStop customers simply don't receive. The box is still new and can be sold as new, despite claims otherwise by some gamers.

As Tobold assesses, this may be another sign of the end of the brick and mortar game store. Now I am not definitely not one to say "old" companies need to lobby and/or sue to try to hinder innovation. But neither are they obligated to hasten their own demise. Besides it's not the brick-and-mortar GameStop that is a direct competitor with Onlive, it is their own online and streaming enterprise.

I don't work for GameStop. DE:HR is not a game I personally care about playing. I don't have dog in that fight. But I am annoyed as hell about the whining in this "community."