The Sandpark: REvolution in game design

[Lightonfoot 58]

The title of this thread involves some sarcasm. Such things occur.

 

Ok, so what am I going on about?

 

What's a sandbox? This is what wiki says:

(Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox)

 

Sandbox game, a genre or mode of some video games for open-ended, nonlinear play

 

I figure most people think sandbox and then are automatically sent back to a distant childhood time when parents made wooden boxes with sand in them for the kids. In fact, I myself had a sandbox. My dad bought me one of those remote-controlled toys for scooping up sand and moving it around. And I remember visiting some girls in the neighborhood who had a nice big sandbox (no, this is not sexual innuendo, it's what I say it's).

 

More generally, I think sandbox alludes to a process of creating something or changing something in a modestly free environment. When we were kids nobody told us what to build in the sandbox, or where or when, right? So sandbox can refer to a multitude of potential processes. In conventional mmo gaming, it often refers to the abilty to change the landscape or to build stuff on it. However, a looser definition of sandbox, or perhaps a more correct definition, can apply to other things, such as character creation or character development or social interaction or social events. If the player is creating or changing something, real or imaginary, and they're exerting free-ish will in the process then they're "playing in the sandbox." So it's still possible for a game with no ability to change hte landscape or build things on it to have some sandbox. I think it can even apply to ideas. It doesn't have to exist in the game.

 

"Drum-roll, please!" Ba bum ba bum, da da da!

 

Now to start with why I'm here. I first started gaming in the 1980's on the Atari 2600. I later went on to try other consoles, like: Turbo Graffix 16, Nintendo, Nintendo 64 and Playstation. I've seen a lot of games in my time. I first had access to a PC as a Freshman in HS. I started playing military simulation games almost immediately. I also programmed in Basic and Assembly for fun.

 

I moved on from military sims to strategy games and role-playing games some time around college age. What I really liked about strategy games was the skirmish mode, where you were put on a random map and did your own thing. I quickly learned that was my preferred playstyle, despite 10 years of playing linear games on consoles and the pc while growing up. I couldn't enjoy being hemmed in and told what to do anymore, a.k.a. the campaign mode. That's the major reason I couldn't enjoy games like Myth: The Fallen Lords or Thief II. Admittedly, those were great campaign games, and those kinds of games are popular amongst gamers. Some of the last campaign/linear PC games I played and enjoyed were Myst and Doom II and probably a few others, but that was that. Even today I cannot derive much if any enjoyment from mission-based or campaign-based games/mmo's. It's the reason I can't swallow these mmorpg's where it feels like quest after quest after quest. Everything feels too directed for my liking.

 

Some of hte games I played early on which introduced me to open-ended gameplay:

1) Quarantine

2) Conquest of the New World the Deluxe Version

3) Daggerfall

4) Privateer

5) Master of Orion I/II

6) Battlecruiser 3000AD

7) Driver

 

There're many more recent games. I also enjoy survival games.

 

The catch is it seems to me most gamers and game makers prefer campaign or mission-based games, or otherwise linear games. I think this is due in part to a few things. First, open-ended games tend to have so much redundant content - to facilitate lots of options - that the quality of said content falls to low levels. Second, open-ended games tend to not tell you where to go or what to do or when to do it, so they can be overwhelming for players, especially at first. Thirdly, I think designers favor a ordered game which reads like a book, starting from page 1 and ending somewhere. A more non-linear sort of design is either not what they're used to or it's just not liked. Lastly, in MMO's, lots of conflicts can come up when masses of players are in an open environment and trying to go about their own thing.

 

Now, since it seems most gamers like more linear kind of gaming, they pose a threat to gamers like me in terms of their monetary value in the market. Simply put, companies want to make money and they will tend to go to the largest audience. Understandbly, I acknowledge this and since there're plenty of options out there, it rarely bothers me. Yet no matter which MMO or game I'm playing, it's always in hte back of my mind. I wonder which ploy the game maker will use to steer the game away from non-linear gameplay towards a more orderly or controlled gameplay. Everything that comes out of the wood work I'm suspicious of. Game makers are very good at dressing up these ideas.

 

And, alas, we come to the title of this thread: The Sandpark: REvolution in game design. Sandpark is a pun, it's a play on thempark which is often used to describe games which leesh their players and hold their hand from beginning to end. We're all familar with WoW and similar MMORPGs being labelled as themeparks. It's of course not completely fair for a game like WoW to be insulted in this way, since it's a very professionally made game. And yet somehow it seems to work for me, since I started playing games like UO and EQ at the turn of the century. Given that experience, it does seem the game worlds have become more like parks or games instead of worlds. Back then, I expected intelligent non-players and dynamic spawnings in EQ2 and so much more, but what we got was a more controlled game with a lot of gotos, flashy colors and pats on hte back. And while I understand this was done because many players felt the old system was too unfriendly to its players, the inevitable end result is the games became more stale and controlled in my eyes. Regardless of the explanations given, no matter how smartly it's conveyed to me, I still see rails and signs and leeshes. I'm called back to my younger years in gaming when there was a divide between mission-based games and open-ended games. When confronted with the divide between the two, I'd take the turn off towards the open-ended games.

 

My feeling is we'll be seeing a lot more sandbox games with stricter controls placed on where you can build, when you can build and what you can build. Additionally, they'll be very task-based or quest-based. They'll not actually say this is what they're doing. Instead we'll get a very showy display of its apparent richness, as well as cryptic explanations from the leading game designers in the industry. It doesn't really matter to me what they say or show me because the outcome is they'll just be making another linear or more strictly controlled game world with fancier presentation.

 

It's not a revolution or even an evolution. It's RE for repeat.

 

Apologies are freely given to any offended or hurt readers unable to digest this. Please just give yourself some room. If you got nothing good or constructive to say, it's better for everybody if you just walk away. I've seen too many threads just become ruined after page 1 simply because people can't do that. This is why I typtically walk away from threads and don't come back for ages. It's too easy to shoot yourself itno your own foot.

Edited November 8, 2014 by Lightonfoot

[As_I_Decay 1,592]

Feels like it belongs in woodscraps.

[Alec 732]

Don't get what the point of the OP is, and this is more woodscraps material than town hall.

[Nomadikhan 2,202]

The original post goes no where other then to explain someone's life history of personal preference in game genres... I don't get the point?

[As_I_Decay 1,592]

The original post goes no where other then to explain someone's life history of personal preference in game genres... I don't get the point?

That is the point. Belongs in woodscraps.

[Alec 732]

Edited by Lightonfoot, Today, 03:48 AM.

 

I have re-read it and there was no change but the last line.

 

Maybe is because is late and I'm getting sleepy, but I still don't understand the OP, may someone more awake than I am do a tl;dr please?.

[Sigilor 7]

I'm with the rest of you...*Waits for the punchline...*

[Alec 732]

I'm with the rest of you...*Waits for the punchline...*

 

 

Indeed, it has a presentation, a development but lacks a conclusion. Is like reading a composition half done. Very confusing.