Goblin Squad Member
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For the sum of my years in my last sandbox game, I did neither kill monsters or players and maintained a valid and important role. Now you tell me, does that set a sandbox apart from a current themepark or does it not?
Any major MMO with guilds can easily support a guild leader whose primary role is to see to the functioning of the guild as a whole, and who is often best-served by delegating jobs like raid leader and class leader to others in the guild.
There are also plenty of players who spend all or the majority of their time taking advantage of the player economy. Any game with an auction house is host to savvy traders capable of making money based on anticipating and controlling price fluctuation alone.
You can't compare the grind in skill based games to the grind in themepark games. They're demonstrably different. For a start I trained numerous characters in various roles in totally different circumstances and methods than that of another player.
Sure, a sandbox might have a few different ways to advance your character than a theme park game might. But even in WoW you can reach the highest level in the game without killing a single monster past level 10, when you gain access to PvP. Similarly, you can reach the highest level without engaging in any PvP whatsoever.
For the sum of my years in my last sandbox game, I did neither kill monsters or players and maintained a valid and important role. Now you tell me, does that set a sandbox apart from a current themepark or does it not?Any major MMO with guilds can easily support a guild leader whose primary role is to see to the functioning of the guild as a whole, and who is often best-served by delegating jobs like raid leader and class leader to others in the guild.
There are also plenty of players who spend all or the majority of their time taking advantage of the player economy. Any game with an auction house is host to savvy traders capable of making money based on anticipating and controlling price fluctuation alone.
You can't compare the grind in skill based games to the grind in themepark games. They're demonstrably different. For a start I trained numerous characters in various roles in totally different circumstances and methods than that of another player.Sure, a sandbox might have a few different ways to advance your character than a theme park game might. But even in WoW you can reach the highest level in the game without killing a single monster past level 10, when you gain access to PvP. Similarly, you can reach the highest level without engaging in any PvP whatsoever.
I also know of players who enjoy just playing the economic side of things, and do not go out killing PvE mobs at all. Same for crafting, I know of some people who only strive to be able to have characters who have maxxed out every combination of professions. These players are also capable of running guilds, roleplaying, and contributing significantly to a guild without every setting foot into an endgame raid instance.
Nothing you have stated is unique to either game style.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Any major MMO with guilds can easily support a guild leader whose primary role is to see to the functioning of the guild as a whole, and who is often best-served by delegating jobs like raid leader and class leader to others in the guild.
That sounds like a fun job...
There are also plenty of players who spend all or the majority of their time taking advantage of the player economy. Any game with an auction house is host to savvy traders capable of making money based on anticipating and controlling price fluctuation alone.
One aspect viable in themeparks I agree, but only one.
Sure, a sandbox might have a few different ways to advance your character than a theme park game might. But even in WoW you can reach the highest level in the game without killing a single monster past level 10, when you gain access to PvP. Similarly, you can reach the highest level without engaging in any PvP whatsoever.
I think we can both agree that going from 1-85 via PvP is a technicality. I've never levelled from 10-85 but let me know if it's any fun (considering your in level 10 gear 10 - 60).
And don't you dare bring up levelling up from trade skills.
Ask anyone who played Ultima Online how they trained their first ever character back in the day. You will get a wealth of unique stories with unique locations and unique methods and each player will have a somewhat unique experience.
Stop trying to make reprieves when you know how religiously different the two are. Goals are given in a theme park, they are in the hearts and minds of the player in a sandbox. How can you quantify the access to the fruits of either genre as being remotely the same when one is clearly defined and the other not at all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Acquiring the most desirable commodities or items in a sandbox could be as easy as being given them, robbing them or stumbling upon them. This is impossible in themeparks. You are forced to participate to the full extent in acquiring what you need; you cannot be given gear or experience.I'm not sure where you're getting that from. When I roll up an alt in WoW, I buy blues and purples for him that will get him through the majority of the leveling process, and just toss them into the mail with some spending cash and a few large bags.
In a sandbox it's as easy as being given reins of a mighty guild or corporation, castle or epic gear or x amount of wealth.Again, I can be handed an end-tier raiding guild with a vault full of epics, or be gifted tens of thousands of gold pieces.
What you think is unique to sandboxes is not unique to sandboxes. And what you think is unique to "theme-parks" (for instance, grinding) is not unique to "theme-parks."
Unless some huge fundamentals of WoW have changed over the years, end game tier sets cannot be handed to you, as generally with very few exceptions they made them bind on pickup for that reason. I agree though both types of games have elements of eachother and there is absolutely no such thing as a pure themepark or a pure sandbox, in the same way that in politics there is no such thing as a pure republican or a pure democrat. Everyone has some unique views that are different from games of it's own genre and category, and the lines between categories are not clearly drawn.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That sounds like a fun job...
Frankly, doing anything that doesn't involve adventuring doesn't sound like a fun "job" in a leisure MMO, but that's just my personal take.
I think we can both agree that going from 1-85 via PvP is a technicality. I've never levelled from 10-85 but let me know if it's any fun (considering your in level 10 gear 10 - 60).
Except you're not. As I explained, you can outfit yourself in truly excellent gear (far better than you'd have if you were out grinding) if you just have the gold for it (gold that is easily sent between characters).
And don't you dare bring up levelling up from trade skills.
I didn't. You can't level up from trade skills in WoW. In fact, you have to gain actual levels before you can progress past certain points in trade skills.
Ask anyone who played Ultima Online how they trained their first ever character back in the day. You will get a wealth of unique stories with unique locations and unique methods and each player will have a somewhat unique experience.
That's great.
Stop trying to make reprieves when you know how religiously different the two are. Goals are given in a theme park, they are in the hearts and minds of the player in a sandbox.
Again, it's not black and white. As a 1st level character in WoW, your end goal is up to you. You can explore solo content, you can raid, you can casually run dungeons with a few RL friends, you can participate in world PvP zones, or form a rated battleground team, or run a guild, or make oodles of gold and trick yourself out with vanity mounts, or dominate the arena, or grind pirate hat rep, or any number of other things.
Yes, things are more regimented than they are in a sandbox game, but they're not as fundamentally different as you'd like them to be.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Unless some huge fundamentals of WoW have changed over the years, end game tier sets cannot be handed to you, as generally with very few exceptions they made them bind on pickup for that reason.
That is absolutely true. But there are also plenty of BoE epics, both crafted and random-drop.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You can't level up from trade skills in WoW.
Tell that to Everbloom of Feathermoon.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You can't level up from trade skills in WoW.Tell that to Everbloom of Feathermoon.
Oh, hey, good catch. I saw trade skills and immediately thought of craft skills, but it's true - gathering skills now provide a small amount of experience. I've actually dinged off mining once or twice. I can't believe I forgot about that.
Goblinworks Founder
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:D
The world would be a better place if for every time you got to be a smart ass, you could do it in rhyme.
You need to rehearse when trolling in verse
It's not always best that you rhymeAs long as you are cynical
You will reach that pinnacle
When moderators think they are cursed
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My dislike of raiding, from experience with it in EQ, EQ2, WoW, etc. is that you get together with twenty to forty other people, die a whole bunch of times, and then somebody else gets an item (or, worse, an item that nobody can use, or that the tanks already all have, drops, and it rots because you can't even pick it up to sell it).
Then you didn't like raiding. You liked looting! You liked looting a lot! You loved getting a new item that was better then the old one, and maybe looks a good deal cooler (though with WoW it might look hideous, it was sort of a crapshot)! But you didn't like raiding.
I'm not saying you didn't like WoW style raiding, mind you, I'ms aying you didn't like raiding period. Because all your complaints lead back to "I hate having to deal with a big group of people and not get any loot at the end," which is basically "I hate raiding the concept."
See, there's a good group of people out there that like raiding. They love getting twenty to forty people together and having to organize everything and keeping groups together. They enjoy it even if they don't get any loot, because they like the group as a whole getting stronger and more capable, because that means they'll beat the fight a little better or easily, and that the next boss afterwards might go down next time.
It's individualist mindset ("I matter, above all else") versus non-individualist mindset ("The group matters")
There's a lot of reasons for it beyond just enjoying raiding too. You hit the cutting edge guilds, and they don't just like raiding, they like being first. They want to be the guild that figures out how to beat the newest big boss and take him down before anyone else can. They discuss strategies and potential plans and ideas on how to get around different attacks or puzzles that the boss presents, because in a lot of WoW raids the bosses are half puzzle and half actual fight. They love the competitive feel of going head to head with the other "best" guilds to prove themselves superior.
So, you don't like raiding. That's fine. Personally? I enjoyed raiding a lot! But then, I'm a group player.
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It's individualist mindset ("I matter, above all else") versus non-individualist mindset ("The group matters")
Yes, that's *exactly* why I don't like spending four stressful hours trying to keep a bunch of people who exclusively play non-group-friendly non-support classes alive, while they chew me out and tell me how to play my character, over chat, over vent, and occasionally via private tell (despite being unwilling to play a support class or healer themselves), and then getting no exp, a huge repair bill, and a headache for it.
'Cause I'm a greedy selfish loot-whore.
Exactly.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's individualist mindset ("I matter, above all else") versus non-individualist mindset ("The group matters")Yes, that's *exactly* why I don't like spending four stressful hours trying to keep a bunch of people who exclusively play non-group-friendly non-support classes alive, while they chew me out and tell me how to play my character, over chat, over vent, and occasionally via private tell (despite being unwilling to play a support class or healer themselves), and then getting no exp, a huge repair bill, and a headache for it.
'Cause I'm a greedy selfish loot-whore.
Exactly.
What kind of raid leader do you have who's stacking his raid with "non-group-friendly" classes (whatever those are)? Also, what kind of guild leader do you have who is allowing his guildmates to chew other guildmates out over how they're playing their class? Raid leaders and class leaders should be the only ones doling out advice/admonishment, and if other people are doing it they should be dealt with accordingly.
Yes, that's *exactly* why I don't like spending four stressful hours trying to keep a bunch of people who exclusively play non-group-friendly non-support classes alive, while they chew me out and tell me how to play my character, over chat, over vent, and occasionally via private tell (despite being unwilling to play a support class or healer themselves), and then getting no exp, a huge repair bill, and a headache for it.
'Cause I'm a greedy selfish loot-whore.
Exactly.
If you think "I perfer individualistic gameplay" transltes to "I'm a greedy selfish loot-whore" then yes. That is what you are saying.
It is not, however, what I am saying.
You dislike being told what to do by the group. That's fine. Really, it is. Some people prefer more individualistic gameplay. That's cool.
But that doesn't mean one method of play is objectively better then others. I used to play WoW and was in some raids! At one point I was class leader, in fact! And before I hit that, I was told when I messed up on. And I improved. And after it, I told others how to improve their game. Maybe not in the same chewing out as you seem to be implying, but when a warlock walks to the raid in all spirit gear, someone's gotta tell him not to do that while growing a third hand with which to triple face-palm.
And you know what? I still enjoyed it. Oh, it had it's frustrating buts, but they were worth it. Because as frustrating as it could be to smash into a brick wall and beat your head against it a few times, finding just the right way or getting people together and working together and just clicking and bringing that boss down after he wiped you so many times, it's a rush, and it's awesome. And because you're in a group the feelings of being awesome just feeds off each other, and soon everyone in Vent is cheering. It's really cool! It also helps that, once they got past Molten Core, Blizzard learned how to make better and better boss fights that were more fun and required more player attention. Have you done the Kaelthas fight? It's intense, and even when you have it completely memorized, I don't think it ever stops being a blast. And one of the reasons it's a blast is because it's a team effort.
"We did it" beats "I did it," because "we did it" is coming out of far more mouths.
Alternately, you play with bad groups. That's also a rather strong possibility! Because when you play with a bad group none of the above really happens. You're just kinda irate because you're surrounded by people you can't stand.