Darth Hater

Yes you are right that I am looking at some of the sand box physical properties rather than it's philosophy. The philosophy of player generated content vs the guided experience. However, it's all guided since they are put in that situation with a certain story, or resources to fight over. If a themepark mmo with open world pvp mimics that, then those physical properties even with a loose tie with the philosophy can pass by my own justification. Maybe that's just me though, and if they did all that with player housing then it would be on par with the philosophy and physical properties of a sand box mmo.

By player housing with open world pvp I was implying player generated content with conquests. Which also implies there are money sinks involved with that which can increase the effect of the players on the economy. Adding things like smuggling cargo is a cool idea and that would be part of the conquest features. It's essentially a whole other game of it's own. However adding it later would be possible, and IMO would be great to help with retention for people who played through the themepark of the game and want to immerse themselves in a different approach.

Also I am very happy with what I see with TOR and don't need the sand box housing idea but it would be cool to have. I will be busy with story and that is why a more sand box approach is not necessary but would be worthwhile for the future. Also we don't know how end game open world pvp works. It could have a lot of sand box elements which affect the economy and possibly the planet or story of Tor in some way.

your criteria for what defines a sandbox game seems to be entirely based on "physical" parameters-the presence of an auction house, player housing, open world, etc. it's really more about the "guided experience" vs. self-generated content. in sandbox games, the developers create a world and give the players the tools to shape it in whatever way they desire. in themepark games, the developers create a world on rails and the players get into a car and let the dev-train take them through it.

the question is, "Which is TOR?"

having played both types of games, my opinion is that TOR more closely resembles a themepark game. the players probably have very little impact on the greater game world. most of their choices will effect only their personal stories. to my knowledge, there is no political system, no territorial conquest, no player controlled economy (other than an auction house), you can't use any type of weapon you can learn/train from the appropriate trainer, you can't get a smuggler to smuggle cargo for you, etc, etc. the game is missing so much more than "player housing" to make it a sandbox game.

please don't make the mistake of interpreting what i wrote as a negative outlook towards TOR (i'm actually mostly positive about it), but it is what it is. i don't think there should be any negative connotations associated with either game type. there are positive things about both. i hope that one day some dev will successfully merge both.

I think TOR is definitely more themepark, but it's showing some hybrid characteristics. Can your decisions and actions in the game affect the world? No, but they certainly affect your personal story, a huge leap from the generic "Kill 10 boars" quest in other MMOs. Yes, that type of quest will be in TOR as well, but this time around, at least you're affecting SOMETHING with the choices you make.

Beyond that, I normally attribute social interaction and exploration/crafting complexity with sandbox games. The more complex the economy and crafting is, the more sandbox it is (see EVE Online). Same goes for exploration and social interaction, such as social hotspots, mini-games, etc. TOR encourages exploration, puts its own spin on crafting, and facilitates social gatherings. Not to the level of sandboxes, but, in my opinion, more than other themeparks.

Similarly, you could argue that GW2 will be a hybrid, except it will be more sandbox than themepark. I think this trend will continue in the MMO genre, until we get truly perfect hybrids that will probably alienate people in both extremes (hardcore sandbox and themepark lovers), but will be appealing to the majority of players (who are in the middle). Just like politics.

I love what some of the articles, and what some of the comments in the articles complain about or find lacking:

the gameplay for the classes starts off slowly. . .so does every MMO and in fact just about every game I've ever played since the game needs to give you the opportunity to learn the basics and then get more advanced

the game is too linear: a)you can't have a sandbox game that is fully voiced, as it stands I would guess that the voice files already make up a large chunk of the game memory, how much larger would it be if it were a fully voiced sandbox. b)most games are linear to some extent, even most MMO's, you can still return to most starting levels and complete quests you missed or didn't finish, but it is still usually pretty linear and it sounds like after the starting planet and the capital(for both Republic and Empire) you get a lot more choice as to where you go. I will grant that there are certainly reasonable questions here, like did it really need to be fully voiced or whether doing something tried and true is a good or bad.

The game seems to be just a single player game with a monthly subscription - really? people are saying that based on information on the early levels, *news flash* EVERY MMO I have every played is essentially a single player game with some, usually entirely optional(as in, it is more fun and somewhat quicker to level doing those quests and dungeons but you aren't actually forced to do them in order to progress either leveling or progress the story), group quests/dungeons until you get to nearly max level. In fact, the level scaling feature for Warzones means it is much easier than in other games to due PVP at low levels.

The game sets you up as some kind of special character - ever read the quest text in WoW or LoTRO or Guild Wars, they make you out to be some great hero too and there are also tons of other people walking around the NPC's are saying the same things to.

I'm not saying the game is going to be perfect, because honestly what is perfect, but I am tired of hearing people going on and on about some of the things like I just mentioned above as if those features, in and of themselves are the problem. They could certainly be symptomatic of problems with the games or part of the problem, but all of those things are features in SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO many games that I don't think they really can be considered, in and of themselves, to be problems with the game.

*rant over*

I think, at least some of, the criticism is because of expectations and Bioware itself. The expectations for the game are very high. People seem to be expecting a game that is radically different from other games in the genre. But if that were true would the game even be an MMO or something else entirely? What one should hope for is that the game brings SOME innovation and excels across the board, even in areas that are standard in the genre.

Exactly, honestly I think people who complain that something isn't innovative are being foolish, since presentation honestly matters far more. I would rather play a game that has standard features but those features are well done and polished than an innovative game that is buggy and doesn't work right, and there is only so much time and money they can spend.

Bioware has always presented their innovation as one of adding story to the mix, and just about every review has acknowledged that they succeed at that, by and large. In most of their interviews they've straight up admitted that a lot of their gameplay elements are taken from other MMO's because those features are proven to work and I think not enough of those articles is giving credit to the fact that Bioware is making some innovation there to, like tanks being good for things other than flag carrying in pvp and giving players more freedom in how they spec their characters.

I agree though, a lot of it is people having ridiculously high expectations of the game. I hope people realize that nothing is every perfect and that especially at launch there will be glitches and bugs and things like that and that there will probably be the occasional boring place, as there is in any game and that they don't flip out when they hit one such aspect.

Honestly, what I think will make or break this game is how Bioware proceeds in the year after launch, how the respond to things people don't like, how they tweak the game in response to feedback and their own testing, and what their proposals are for adding to the game(I doubt there will be any major expansions in the first year, but by next December they'll have probably announced their plans for one and it will say a lot, I think, what they propose to do with that).

one thing i have to agree with you on is your last paragraph. timely and appropriate responsiveness to the player's issues/needs/wants. i wish i could give a singular example of BW's timely responsiveness, but it would violate the NDA. as an aside, i think it's somewhat hypocritical of BW to allow "media" to report on the game and still keep testers NDA-bound.

Probably more of a logistical issue than real hypocritical. It's much easier for them to monitor 20 or so locations to make sure they haven't violated the terms of the Embargo (republic only, only up to level 15, minimal discussion of 'story'), than it would be to monitor the thousands of independent locations an NDA lift would create.

On the topic of post release, I'd agree that the OP has it right. Tweaking, responsiveness, and content will tell if this games succeeds. With their hype as it is, they should be profitable right off the bat, something almost no other MMO can say. That should translate to good staffing right off the bat.....should translate being the operative words.

The main thing I hope Bioware is prepared for the inevitable post launch dip and don't panic and start changing tons of things.

I figure that a ton of people are going to get the game at or near launch because of all the hype around it. Then in the following three months there is probably going to be a notable dip in subscriptions as people leave because "its cool and all but it still an MMO and I don't like those" or "it doesn't live up to my ridiculously golden expectations of the game" or "It doesn't have X feature(or has X feature) and even though they announced that to be the case I'm still mad they didn't change their mind" or for a lot of other reasons and then from there the subscriptions will probably slowly start rising again as people get into the game through other means other than the hype(their friends play and love it and talk them into it, and stuff like that).

The key thing is for Bioware not to freak out about that dip(it may not happen but I think in all reality it probably will) and start changing things to try to win back those people(most of whom will fall into groups that they'll never be won back anyway).

people have too narrow a view of what defines an mmo.

http://www.gamereactor.se/forhandstittar/29519/Star Wars: The Old Republic/

Swedish preview from GameReactor.

The Escapist link needs it's trailing / removed, or it goes to a 404. :)

http://www.gamer.no/artikler/96797/sniktitt-star-wars-the-old-republic/2/ - A preview in norwegian here.