Elite Dangerous is not a sandbox

[foxpur]

If you're going to get all hair splitty and technical, MMO actually stands for Massively Multiplayer Online. The "massively" is intrinsically linked to the "multiplayer" (being an adverb) and isn't a reference to the game world scale but the number of simultaneous players.

Noted and changed

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If those "simultaneous" players cannot instantly interact with each other I'd say the "MMO" becomes moot.

If I come across you... you will be killed... how much instantly interactive do you need?

 

[Siggi]

Its multi-player is enough for me. True MMOs can be somewhat over-whelming if the specific environment is based upon a reality in which rookies predominated (WW2 stuff for instance) but human players over-represent vets and aces.

ED offers a big enough chance of meeting potentially lethal human opponents and is more 'realistic' in that regard, in my opinion.

 

[Katkon]

I personally find it odd that people get hung up on this debate of sandbox vs. non-sandbox. There is no official definition, so I think we all just need to accept that we're walking around with slightly different definitions. To me - and that's what matters (to me!) - sandbox simply means undirected play area. There is no story. Gameplay is non-linear. That's enough for ME to call it a sandbox. YMMV - and that's just fine with me - but there's no real point in debating it as we'll NEVER agree!

 

[MajorEpeen]

Since when does a Sandbox game need crafting?

A sandbox game is simply defined by not being linear or "on rails". This game has no storyline and we can go wherever we want doing whatever we want, whenever we want. We make our own story. This is why some people cannot get on with sandbox games as they crave direction.

 

[dumbo]

IAfter reviewing the discussion here, it seems the problem is in defining what "sandbox" means. I posted the following definition somewhere in this thread, but here it is upfront for newcomers:

Sandbox is a genre that is not a boolean (neither simply "true" or "false"), but it is a collection of features, which when weighed in total, demonstrates HOW MUCH "sandboxy" a game is, in the SLIDING scale of "sandbox-iness".

For example, if a game is open world, that's +1 to sandboxiness, if it also has crafting, another +1, etc.

This way everyone's definition of sandbox is included, no one is left out and we can analyze how much a game is sandbox like, instead of whether it is or is not a sandbox in the absolute sense.

.

- play snakes & ladders, tic-tac-toe, chess, draughts, football. You have a game, you can win/lose, but you are told what to do. This is 'directed play'.
- play in sandbox. There's no game, there's no win/loss, you are not told what to do. This is 'undirected play'.

That's what the term "sandbox" refers to - undirected play. The term has absolutely nothing to do with economy, crafting, politics or anything else.

[many single-player strategy games have a 'sandbox' option, which is used in exactly that manner - 'no "campaign", no "score", just do whatever you want - build/destroy/whatever']

 

[zamalek]

you can craft

That's an MMO requirement and has nothing to do with sandbox. It is nothing more than an unimaginative and thin facade over item acquisition.

you can manipulate the market by embargos

You can in ED.

dumping on the market

You can in ED.

can fly capital ships

Some day in ED.

can construct your own items

Crafting, again? Seriously. I don't think spamming a single button and watching a progress bar is engaging sandbox game play. If this forms part of the definition of sandbox, then surely Cookie Clicker is a sandbox game?

Right now the market value barely changes, even with a ton of money used to move product.

Yes it does, if you are a high-end trader you will seriously feel the impact of a few people finding your trade route. I have been forced to find a new route in order to maintain top profits.

it doesn't have a predifined objective and that trading will be open ended.

That is the only actual requirement of a sandbox game. Everything else you mentioned are simply features that can be present in any type of game. A theme park game could easily have a market, capital ships, crafting (which all theme park MMOs have).

However, you are not ever going to meet more than 32 players in your game, so you can't really do massive pvp the way you can in a true sandbox like EVE.

TiDi would not work in a simulator - you can't slow all player's tick rates down while they are mid-maneuver. EvE is not a simulator, it is a space-themed MMO. Massive PvP like EvE's, in true realtime with interactive flight controls and physics, is computationally impossible.

market to make it more reliant on players, adds crafting, custom weapons, custom ships, allows players to own and operate sectors of space, etc, there is no way to consider it a true sandbox game.

Again with the features typically present in themepark MMOs.

if it also has crafting, another +1, etc.

No. Wrong. Crafting is a themepark MMO element. Some sandbox games have chosen to adopt the mechanic.

[... tallying points in games ...]

Extremely biased. Identical features were listed twice. Themepark features cited as sandbox features.

It actually sounds like you want ED to be more themepark, to be frank. In addition, who cares if it's sandbox, themepark or even french fries? FD never said it was sandbox. They said that it was Elite.

 

[Es Royce]

Extremely biased. Identical features were listed twice. Themepark features cited as sandbox features.

It actually sounds like you want ED to be more themepark, to be frank.

Quite funny that you call others biased when boviously you are the one being biased here.

As a matter of fact, ED is not sandbox right now.

The only thing you mentioned that can be counted as sandbox element is this extremly simplistic trading system in ED, which in return makes it a sandbox game for you, right?

You know what I call that? An Open world game with a single, very simplistic, sandbox element, but its by no means a sandbox game.

As an example, Space Engineers is being played in ego perspective or 3rd person and you can have weapons there. Is Space Engineers an ego shooter or third person shooter now just because it has some shooter elemnts to it?
No, its a sandbox game and not a shooter an not both at the same time either. Its just a sandbox game because the focus of it is sandbox.

ED on the other hand has its focus on Open World and not its (atm) single sandbox elemnt, which makes it an open world game for now.

Cmon, that is not hard to understand....

 

[MorkFromOrk]

Quite funny that you call others biased when boviously you are the one being biased here.

As a matter of fact, ED is not sandbox right now.

The only thing you mentioned that can be counted as sandbox element is this extremly simplistic trading system in ED, which in return makes it a sandbox game for you, right?

You know what I call that? An Open world game with a single, very simplistic, sandbox element, but its by no means a sandbox game.

As an example, Space Engineers is being played in ego perspective or 3rd person and you can have weapons there. Is Space Engineers an ego shooter or third person shooter now just because it has some shooter elemnts to it?
No, its a sandbox game and not a shooter.

ED on the other hand is an Open Wolrd game with a single sandbox elemnt, which makes it an open world game only for now.

Cmon, that is not hard to understand....

http://www.techopedia.com/definition/3952/sandbox-gaming

Its a sandbox for more than one reason. I can trade what I want if I want. I can shoot anyone I want whenever I want for any reason. I can buy ships I want. I can go wherever I want. I can do missions I want. There is some progression with ranking but it is a tiny part. There is limited story to provide context and there will be injected events but I don't have to take part in them to progress. Open World and Sandbox go together.

Sure it could to with more sand and a few more toys to play with but it is, without doubt, a sandbox.

 

[zamalek]

http://www.techopedia.com/definition/3952/sandbox-gaming

Its a sandbox for more than one reason. I can trade what I want if I want. I can shoot anyone I want whenever I want for any reason. I can buy ships I want. I can go wherever I want. I can do missions I want. There is some progression with ranking but it is a tiny part. There is limited story to provide context and there will be injected events but I don't have to take part in them to progress. Open World and Sandbox go together.

Sure it could to with more sand and a few more toys to play with but it is, without doubt, a sandbox.

You said it in less words and more eloquently than I did. +rep

 

[Es Royce]

http://www.techopedia.com/definition/3952/sandbox-gaming

Its a sandbox for more than one reason. I can trade what I want if I want. I can shoot anyone I want whenever I want for any reason. I can buy ships I want. I can go wherever I want. I can do missions I want. There is some progression with ranking but it is a tiny part. There is limited story to provide context and there will be injected events but I don't have to take part in them to progress. Open World and Sandbox go together.

Sure it could to with more sand and a few more toys to play with but it is, without doubt, a sandbox.

Funny, what you said remainds me of Assasins Creed, which again is open world.

Bringing up an articel from some random dude of what he thinks sandbox is doesnt change a thing.

Everyone calls GTA for example an open world game and not sandbox cuz its missing this: "...allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will." (from your linked article)

Now put ED in that sentence and voila, thats what it is.

 

[MorkFromOrk]

Funny, what you said remainds me of Assasins Creed, which again is open world.

Bringing up an articel from some random dude of what he thinks sandbox is doesnt change a thing.

Everyone calls GTA for example an open world game and not sandbox cuz its missing this: "...allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will." (from your linked article)

Now put ED in that sentence and voila, thats what it is.

OK. You give a definition from a more authoritative source to support your position that this is not a sandbox.

Perhaps wikipedia might suffice as a source for you : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_world

Note how it even lists the original Elite.

 

[zamalek]

Bringing up an articel from some random dude of what he thinks sandbox is doesnt change a thing.

Indeed. Though, from our perspective, what are you? Are you not a random dude to us? Why does your argument therefore carry any weight? Mork attempted to cite a source, unlike any other arguments I have seen in this thread. Every other argument here has been anecdotal.

Cmon, that is not hard to understand....

Yes, apparently it is.

 

[MorkFromOrk]

Indeed. Though, from our perspective, what are you? Are you not a random dude to us? Why does your argument therefore carry any weight. It is an attempt to cite a source, unlike any other arguments I have seen in this thread. Every other argument here has been anecdotal.

It's quite possible that some people objected to that random dude Samuel Johnson daring to define the words that people used.

 

[zamalek]

It's quite possible that some people objected to that random dude Samuel Johnson daring to define the words that people used.

I can't wait for "sandbox game" and "immersion" to get added to the dictionary. People are taking these neologisms way too far in order to push their agendas.

 

[MrGambler]

Since when does a Sandbox game need crafting?

Since minecraft apparantly. It seems all the original open-world sandbox games before hand, are no longer sandbox games it seems to some peoples logic Some people fail to realise, that crafting is a mere component added to a sand box game, it does not make it a sand box game, it is just a feature that adds to the spice. I'm personally against it though in ED, imagine ED with a craft anything feature? I don't fancy seeing 50 foot baby maker floating past my cockpit at a nav point. (<-- That was for comical purpose, not seriousness).

Edit: Come to think of it, Dwarf Fortress anyone? That was a brilliant addtion to the sandbox genre. If anything, it may have been that game that changed peoples definition on what a 'sand box' game is.

 

[brumster]

(not going to read all of this thread, but...)

At a basic sense, I always took sandbox to mean you're provided with some basic building blocks and tools (and I mean that metaphorically) and you then make out of the game what you want. There is no pre-defined "end game", you're free to muck about doing what you want. No script, etc.

In that basic sense, you would have to concede ED is a sandbox. My problem is, it's not a very engaging sandbox. Let me make a Minecraft analogy, and please bear with me... with MC, the interaction between the various aspects of the game - the mobs, the game physics, the blocks, the items and the mechanics around crafting, you get a very rich, practically infinitesimal number of combinations of activities. The way MC has endured over time is testament to this.

Now ED doesn't have to have the same mechanics; no-one is wanting to see crafting tables, magic or mining in ED... oh... err... hold on...

The problem is, the mechanics of ED aren't that deep to provide much life to an open, sandbox-style play. You've got mining, trading, pirating, bounty hunting or discovering as gameplay styles. But each of them is pretty formulaic, bar tweaking their effectiveness with upgrades... a game-wide mechanic that is welcome, but it alone is not really enough to provide long-term engagement (well, not to everyone).

The only honest answer I can say is, I'm not feeling the "hook" at the moment. There's not enough depth to what's there to provide the variety of gameplay. Maybe it does need some scripted gameplay to make it interesting. Maybe we just need to wait and see what Frontier have up their sleeve in terms of additional facets. At the moment, I log on each night, try to push to find something exciting happen, and just end up burning away another hour of my time doing the same old same old.

 

[foxpur]

My problem is, it's not a very engaging sandbox.

Now THIS is a very good specific. And, in current state it's pretty much the same as Frontier, which was basically what people asked for... Current graphics, multiplayer, same great game... and well... that's what we got.

 

[brumster]

Yeah, that's fair enough. I'm quite happy for Frontier to make the game they want it to be, and I'm sure as it stands it's the game many people want it to be. For me, it needs a little more 'depth'. It's hard to not sound vague but I'm not sure I can pinpoint exactly what it needs; if I could, I'd be in game design . There are probably a good 20 or 30 minor criticisms I could level at it, each of them nothing by themselves, but together they neuter the game to a rather lacklustre version of what it could be.

Mind you, I'm on record as being a game player. I want to hop in, have some fun for 60 minutes, get some degree of instant gratification, then tune out. I don't want to be forced to role-play over 3 hour sessions to get the most out of it. I want a long-term hook, absolutely (I want to play it for 12 months+) but you also need that short-term gratification to keep your interest up. Playing Alpha and Beta has burnt the instant gratification out of me over the last 10 months; the long-term just isn't there (I'm sorry, but I gave up on aspiring to an Anaconda a long time ago, given the time I get to play).

 

[Monk]

This is NO sandbox. I don't see how I could waste gallons of water turning it into a backyard pond for some disgusting kid play time (I didn't like toys much growing up ). Also, it is a good way to skim for cat turds and last I checked you aren't scooping that kind of thing in E;D.

It is just a video game, folks. We can argue through hell and high water about what Sandbox, Open World, MMO, simulator and whatever else terminology you want to use means but, in the end, what does it matter? We will never settle on a widely agreed upon definition for any of it. Just ask Bill Clinton what the word "is" means.

Anyway, more seriously...and this is purely opinion and in no we defines anything for anyone else...I always thought Sandbox meant I could build or reshape the game world as I see fit while staying within whatever limitations the software has. For example, Garry's mod was the first sandbox I was familiar with. You could build anything you wanted, given you had the source material available, there was no defined objective or reward. That, to me is a sandbox. Elite, falls more into the open world concept for me. While there is no story line objectives to address, I do have the inherent objective to improve my assets through work (fun work, but work). A sandbox does not require me to work for the best things available. I can just grab em have em and do all I can or want with them. Also, Elite rewards me for my work, with nicer and better things, fun audio cues for when I pop an enemy access to greater and better things as I PROGRESS. Progress is the key difference between the two. Progress in a sandbox is reliant on whatever goals you set which can, essentially, be infinite. Elite, you can have a large number of different goals to pursue but it is ultimately definite in selection.

 

[Morbad]

Nothing about a sandbox game requires a crafting system, or instances that support more than x number of players.

All you need for a sandbox game is a world without too many arbitrary limitations on where you can go or what you can do.