sandbox and SOTA

2 different games Wurm Online and SotA. Wurm is extreme niche that takes years to master - if mastery is ever possible in Wurm. What Wurm is lacking for me is adventure-not much to be discovered. I have several deeds currently and will continue to build, kill trolls and explore.

SotA, on the other hand, is a work in progress. The crafting side of it has some depth. POT's also offer some creative opportunities for those who invest or those who become stewards (as someone mentioned above). I am enjoying experimenting with different builds and advancing my skills. I think artifacts were a nice addition and I hope many, many, many more artifact type items will be introduced throughout the game to encourage all players regardless of adventure level or playstyle to do a bit of exploration. Im looking forward to fishing - These guys will kill it with fishing. Im that confident. Wish Wurm could make fishing interesting : ) The siege system is unique for me and it has potential.

The OP clarified that he's not looking for the next Wurm. He's using Wurm as a frame of reference. SotA is not sandbox like Wurm - Wurm is quicksand in a good sort of way, if you've got years of your life to spare : ) . There's a reason why it has such a small following. I see many sandbox elements in Sota and i expect these to grow, develop and become more impressive over time.

I choose to enjoy the moment and have faith in a team who has delivered in the past. Let the haters hate and the cheer leaders cheer - Im enjoying the ride !

 

Some of the best adventures I have ever had have been in Wurm Online. Adventure must come from the players themselves because it is a sandbox.

• Camping on a new server as a noob in survival mode to find the perfect deed spot running away from tough mobs. Discovering that my neighbor down the road was my old neighbor on the old server despite us intending to go our own way!
• Building the first guard tower on the new server and building the first highway around the lake (which will remain forever)
• Wandering the developed server on foot and enjoying the mystery of ruins past. Spelunking with friends in caved in mines and exploring where they go, busting into dead mines full of mobs.
• Stumbling on a ruined town in the woods that was infested with champion spiders the size of a house. (champions mobs used to be huge). Things like this only happen when there is no GPS mapping to prevent you from ever getting lost.
• Bringing friends together to hopefully dig to water in the middle of the map and miserably failing. We used the dirt to flatten pasture lands. Last I logged in it had turned into a valley forest.

Most people that use faster horse/boat/cart travel are missing the adventure that is all around them, which is off the beaten path.

Wurm Unlimited added an adventure mode, with NPCs towns and lootboxes to find. It had a rather hilarious chat generator, it's intent was to simulate the Wurm Online PVP server for single players wanting to try the game.

Now SOTA has mines and forests and ruins, but they are the same things that will always be there for everyone else to discover and have the same experience that never changes. It would be different if modding was allowed so players could have limited engagements in a hex claim, but that is not going to happen. The hex will be the same when you go back to regrind the scene, until the devs decided to nerf it as being too productive a grind.

Calling SOTA a sandbox because your POT can be decorated and use limited building blocks is not an experience that anyone can have as it costs five figures. Decorating your house is not a unique experience. ESO does it now and Everquest did it before and some would argue using a better financial model.

 

Ill clarify what i meant. As a pve person with more than 90FS there is not much challenge in the wilderness. Be nice if there were areas that were hard mode (not pvp areas) with something other than wolves, spiders and trolls. Wurm could also have more lore that allows and encourages discovery - ancient items, mysterious relics, lost valrei cities, etc, etc. Things to be found in the deepest forests and darkest mines. Stuff that could be used as deco or sold on the market. Done lots of things similar to what you list, but continue to hope for more in the form of a super hard hunting server with lots of cool stuff to be discovered. Wurm has the potential to be much more that it is : )

Both SotA and Wurm have my attention. Looking forward to continuing to enjoy both.

 

It is rather sandbox-y for a game that expects to attract a lot of players, but it's nowhere near Minecraft levels of sandbox. Within your lot deed (or POT for those who go that far) you get a mini-sandbox that is still well above most mainstream multi-player games. (For instance, in FFXI you can place a few furniture items in your "house", but they're on a grid like in Animal Crossing, and nobody else can see them unless you are online and explicitly let them in.)

The problem with too much sandbox is first that it adds a lot of data storage requirements and scales badly both in data and performance (increased cost per player), and second (and probably most important) is other people. If any random player can run a 4-lane highway through your backyard, that's way too much sandbox for most people. At a certain point, griefing becomes too easy. It's bad enough to live across the river from four lighthouses with beams that go through walls (yes, this happens, check my Kingsport row house at night), and it would be worse if lots didn't mean you had a space nobody else could alter without your permission.

Too much sandbox can also end up with a mess of a world if you don't do server resets every now and then. Casual players just won't stand for that (if only because they build a lot slower than the ones who make a mess and run off), so the market for high-sandbox games is inherently limited.

I'm fine with this not being Minecraft. If I wanted Minecraft, I would set up my own server and get some friends to join in. The thing I want most about SotA is no world shards.

And I think LB still wants you to be able to drop items anywhere that others can pick up.

That certainly goes with what I'm hearing that people seem to be expecting ("beach"-themed items) from the upcoming telethon.

That is mostly a result of this being a game in development. Right up until the end, the mobs are going to mostly be generic placeholders. When they have added new mob types, it has so far mostly been because the story development reached a point where they needed to make something new.

 

My reference to trolls, wolves and spiders was a Wurm reference - not a SotA reference.

For what its worth - SotA needs lots more monsters

 

Make your own Wurm Unlimited Adventure server for things to find, and you can control the spawns to make your own hardmode (or find someone elses server you like). Wurm Online has not had success in that direction because it is a niche of a niche and they want to make whatever meager money they can.

 

You should really look at the new housing update for ESO, it puts SOTA to shame on the vast number of items you can find and having a much cheaper store. It also allows building blocks.

Housing being in it's own instance is a desirable feature, the problems of database scene lag you mention are exactly why the new player outskirts DO NOT have housing, as well as it interferes both visually and technically with storytelling. Inflicting your yard sale on others is not compatible with that vision, and the devs have finally realized it was a mistake. This is why free placement of deeds is important to a sandbox, own a large deed in a more remote area for no neighbors.

Wurm Online does not reset servers anymore, they tried a progression wipe server and it failed. But certainly something that could be done in Wurm Unlimited. However they do have a living biome which is a feature no other game has, the forest and caves will take over and make ruins of others housing with decay once it's deed runs out. Players have also insisted they implement erosion because of new players thinking natural landscapes they can flatten is better than something already flat, but they already take enough server hit with the living biome.

 

The reason both are more limited in monster sets is time and money. This is not a development stage issue as claimed. They have not announced any new flora/fauna plans before release. Why do you think the most recent monster update was 'city' kobolds which is just redressing existing mobs. Same reason we are only getting two harvestable trees.

Look at ARK Survival Evolved that made mob development a priority with every release having several new mobs for years. If you want lots of mobs it must be planned for with time and money, if SOTA was going to do it they would have had to be doing it already.

 

Heh. Discussing about the dangers of too much sandbox in the context of SOTA is like discussing about nuclear weapons when 2 kids are playing with sticks and stones.

I'm pretty sure we're a very very very safe distance away from having too much sandbox.