Don't make Theme Park Fantasy MMOs unless you're happy with a huge initial spike followed by a big drop in players.
Warhammer Online (and Age of Conan, and Rift) are all theme park games. They have PvP, but PvP does not make a game a sandbox. The hallmark of sandbox games is persistence.
The more persistent impact your players have on the world the more like a sandbox it becomes. The fantasy theme parks limit persistence to character development and some limited crafting and house decorating.
Really, comparing sandbox games and theme park games is like comparing baseball and football. The similarities are far less important than the differences.
What are the differences?
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Sandboxes are persistent. Persistence means once a change is made, it stays made. Kill an NPC, that NPC stays dead. Anyone who never met that NPC, will never be able to.
Themeparks are MMO designed like single player games. Everyone gets to be THE hero who saves the world. The only changes that are made are made by you. This is usually accomplished through things like phasing (in WoW). Pre-Phasing, you were just suppose to shut your eyes and ears to the fact that the guy in front of you just "won the game" as you step up to "win the game"...yay!
Sandboxes are persistent. Persistence means once a change is made, it stays made. Kill an NPC, that NPC stays dead. Anyone who never met that NPC, will never be able to.
Never played a sandbox game which has ever done that, but I understand where your coming from.
The terms Sandbox and Themepark are thrown around, but they can probably be defined as this:
Themepark - A MMORPG which takes you for a 'ride'. Linear paths of progression, a tailored world which makes it as interesting and viable for you to progress through linear content to which there is an end. General aim is to acquire gear, levels, titles and 'complete' the game until a patch or expansion. An online game with singleplayer outcomes; complete the game.
Sandbox - A game with none linear paths of progression and functions as a fantasy world. Gaming outcomes are defined by the player and not the game content. You do not 'finish' the game, you live persistantly and are constantly defining and redefining your goals. Do you want a house? land? an empire? a job? a political position? to be a fisherman? etc. You are given the freedom to do what you want in a given universe.
Games like WOW or EQ have tons of backstory, but the mechanism to deliver it, i.e. quests or similar mechanisms may not be the best for immersion in a traditional roleplaying sense. And in regards to sandbox versus theme park, I see no real difference, if both are limited on the amount of content you can explore. The one benefit of a theme park is you can share experiences and go through the same series of events as other players, where a sandbox may limit an experience to certain group. Both can foster elitism which is a big turn off for the casual player. For example the sandbox experience will tend to award the first to encounter a scenario (and then it is done), where a theme park would offer the same experience in regards to the first to beat the scenario. At least with the latter others may try.
Myself and a group of friends are looking for an online video game that resembles the D&D experience. Preferably not something like Wizards of Warcraft but something that allows for multi-player play with a strong story. Seems like a lot of WOW type games aren't strong on story. Any suggestions?
Have you ever played Neverwinter Nights 1?
It has online multiplayer worlds and also a Dungeonmaster client. Together with a gameplay that is as close as you can get to D&D this is still the hottest contender I think...
Myself and a group of friends are looking for an online video game that resembles the D&D experience. Preferably not something like Wizards of Warcraft but something that allows for multi-player play with a strong story. Seems like a lot of WOW type games aren't strong on story. Any suggestions?
Imo, WOW actually has fairly strong story lines... if you CHOOSE to read the quest and information texts. Most people don't, but I do.
Star Wars TOR is also supposed to be a strongly story driven MMO. Bioware has never let me down in this respect before...
SWTOR oozes story...you won't be disappointed.
WOW is actually very strong on story, especially with the more involved quest lines. It's mostly the players that don't bother to relate to it.
Probably largely due to the lack of immersion caused by nothing ever being completed. "We have a problem with wolves, go kill 40 of them" Player goes to an area with 15 wolves, kills them, then waits for them to respawn, kills another 15, waits for respawn then kills another 10, while talking he sees the last 10 re-appear. Hard to feel like you are doing things when the world has to go back to the way it was the second you finish.
SWTOR oozes story...you won't be disappointed.
Unless you have to reroll the same character and go through the same story. After all the character wipes in beta I cannot play my Sith Assassin anymore. Each class is only good for one play through.