StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Sandbox games seem all the rage these days. The question is where do we go from here ? The bar has been raised very high. Whats the next crop of games going to do to woo gamers ?

Sandbox games with persistent changes to the gameworld?

Create a sandbox that actually feels halfway alive? I don't think the bar is set very high at all by current games, mostly it's just a whole lot of nothing and a handful of scripted events. Kajillion square miles of playing area don't make for a dynamic world if there's only a standard corridor shooter's worth of content in there. And that's exactly how the current sandbox games feel to me. Very little interesting stuff, and even that doesn't actually make any use of the world around it.

Off the top of my head, I can't name a single sandbox game where the world actually feels dynamic. Games like Witcher and Alpha Protocol are way more open-ended than the so-called sandbox games, despite the play area being pretty strictly limited.

Karza wrote: Off the top of my head, I can't name a single sandbox game where the world actually feels dynamic. Games like Witcher and Alpha Protocol are way more open-ended than the so-called sandbox games, despite the play area being pretty strictly limited.

Oblivion?
Okay not even Oblivion is dynamic but it's NPC's do have lives and routines. Even if those bandits don't and will happily sit in the dungeon with all of their ill gotten loot until you get there. You have to understand they just got done with all their bandity and have no need to do anymore when you start the game.

Karza wrote: Off the top of my head, I can't name a single sandbox game where the world actually feels dynamic. Games like Witcher and Alpha Protocol are way more open-ended than the so-called sandbox games, despite the play area being pretty strictly limited.

The best one for this is probably Red Faction: Guerilla because it at least saves which buildings you've destroyed as the plot progresses and gives you more freedom with how to complete each mission than GTA. In Grand Theft Auto it's an "open world," but the minute you, say, take a mission to kill someone, you have to go to the exact spot where they are, watch a cutscene, OH NO SOMETHING WENT WRONG, then get into a car chase where the minute you don't go in the exact direction at the exact speed the game wants you to you lose. In Red Faction if you have to kill someone you can spot them with a rifle a mile away, stealthily plant demolition charges around the building they're in, just run them over when they're leaving work, etc. Very underrated game in general.

I actually think open world games have been getting worse over time though as they increase in size and "budget." All the budget goes towards character animations and character models instead of being put into developing the world itself. The smaller "open" world games of years ago like King's Field or Metroid Prime or the oldest Legend of Zelda games feel much more involving to me because of this. Even if the world is smaller every inch of it was painstakingly made, everything was unique and the gameplay was based around exploring and learning the rules of the world itself rather than playing through baby's first B movie plot line like every open world game that comes out today.

We're also less prone to notice how "dynamic" a game is when the focus isn't on the graphics and the sheer size of the place. Fallout 3 is a perfect example, Bethesda's Gamebryo engine has more polygons on a character's face than most games have for their entire character models, and they usually get some decent voice actors for their biggest characters (though even Patrick Stewart was slumming it as a guard in Oblivion later on ). So in the first town in Fallout 3 there's a quest where you can inform the sheriff that a person in a bar is planning to destroy the town. The sheriff is like "oorah time for some WASTELAND JUSTICE" and strolls into the bar and tells the guy he's under arrest/etc. The sheriff then turns around to walk away and the suspect shoots him in the back. No one in this crowded bar reacts to or cares about their leader getting gunned down by some stranger. This moment is so absurd in the game because it just went to so much trouble to establish how we're in a "living, breathing world" where the characters care about stuff and have their little routines and so on. It makes these logistical gaps where we have to throw up our arms and say "well it's just a game" stand out even more.

The more intelligently designed open world games are much smaller in size but focus on the environment itself instead of the characters, so it avoids this problem entirely. I'd love to have a game that takes the best of both worlds but something like that hasn't been possible since the mid-nineties as the focus on "open world" games now is to have the biggest world imaginable and to have "accurate" recreations of real life places (yeah right).

A lot of sandbox games have a lack of persistent changes in gameplay and centralized plotting. So they end up feeling not very sandboxy at all. GTA is open world in the sense that it's basically a really big level. The missions in the game are totally linear and cannot be diverged from in any way. This is basically how most sandbox games are and it defeats the purpose of the gameworld. Rockstar is absolutely the worst in this regard.

Wouldn't WoW be a sandbox game that didn't pour all it's money into more "realistic" characters, animations, etc? There's an awful lot of stuff to do in that world, plenty of content from side-missions to long chains to scripted events. On top of that, they're doing more "phasing" where your actions do change the environment permanently for that particular character. They are evolving more and more towards that, although there's still plenty of "kill the monster, watch it respawn" effect.

Seven posts and nobody's mentioned Dwarf Fortress yet? For shame!

Seriously, though, DF has to be almost everything a sandbox game ought to be. The alpha version already includes procedural world-map generation that simulates rainfall, mean temperature and erosion, and then generates a thousand-odd years of backstory for the various civilisations. Your individual citizens get a random selection of individual personality traits and likes and dislikes (even if they're all bipolar, absent-minded alcoholics) and there are no winning conditions save what you choose for yourself. And to top it off, it's incredibly easy to add user-created content.

CaptHawkeye wrote:A lot of sandbox games have a lack of persistent changes in gameplay and centralized plotting. So they end up feeling not very sandboxy at all. GTA is open world in the sense that it's basically a really big level. The missions in the game are totally linear and cannot be diverged from in any way. This is basically how most sandbox games are and it defeats the purpose of the gameworld. Rockstar is absolutely the worst in this regard.

Wasn't it always a point in sandbox games (Mafia II being an exception) that you could diverge from the main plot and do whatever you want. You could take some missions in whatever order you wanted. While yes, the missions were linear, I enjoyed the path they put me on. And even when I'm done with the story, there's still stuff for me to do. I'm not saying its flawless, I'm just don't fully understand your beef with Rockstar.

Sarevok wrote:Sandbox games seem all the rage these days. The question is where do we go from here ? The bar has been raised very high. Whats the next crop of games going to do to woo gamers ?

I'd imagine Just Cause 2, but with actual content where there's nothing but space. But that's not gonna happen anytime soon.

I'd be willing to put money down that the next trend in sandbox gaming will be user-generated content, especially in multiplayer environments.

I think a lot of it is going to be crap or it'll appeal to a certain kind of user base (like Second Life does now) before developers understand it well enough to design it well. But there's a lot of technology being developed around player or user-created content - and making that content good without requiring a lot of effort or skill from the player - and a lot more games are including it. I was actually looking forward to Lego Universe for a while, since it's the perfect opportunity to make a good MMO with user-generated content, but it looks like it's not going to go nearly far enough. Maybe in five years or so we'll have a really excellent example of this.

Neo Rasa wrote:I actually think open world games have been getting worse over time though as they increase in size and "budget." All the budget goes towards character animations and character models instead of being put into developing the world itself.

You can say that about pretty much every game genre, and they do it because it sells games. I'd love for a really good company to work on a sandbox game that's Oblivion-style and actually decide to prioritize the AI interactions and gameplay over the next-gen graphics and pretty screenshots.

Also, when trying to make sandbox more realistic, it is really freaking hard to try to design systems where things or AI react the way the player expects in all circumstances. (That was my job for the last two years.) The more things you give AI to "care about", the exponentially more situations you need to account for. But, unfortunately when it comes to selling the game that costs $30 million to make, 'depth' is one of the first things that get cut.

Bradbury wrote:But there's a lot of technology being developed around player or user-created content - and making that content good without requiring a lot of effort or skill from the player

You can make pretty prefabs. There is no way to make user-generated missions good, and in an AAA voiced/cutscene heavy game there is no way to include user-made plot elements at all. The user-made content drum has already been beaten pretty thoroughly, and it runs straight into the fact that >90% of it is crap (unsurprisingly, as players are not game designers).

I'd love for a really good company to work on a sandbox game that's Oblivion-style and actually decide to prioritize the AI interactions and gameplay over the next-gen graphics and pretty screenshots.

Currently very unlikely because the game industry has been taken over by failed film industry people. Decision makers would rather spend money on actors and cutscenes and pretending they are movie producers. Procedural content just seems too risky to them; not just the technology, also the fact that they'd rather have a shit player experience they can completely control rather than a dynamically generated one (sometimes-awesome sometimes-boring) that they can't.

Also, when trying to make sandbox more realistic, it is really freaking hard to try to design systems where things or AI react the way the player expects in all circumstances. (That was my job for the last two years.)

Game AI design is particularly hard not just because of the pathetic processing resources allocated to it (for console games anyway), but also because the schedules are very short and the desired behavior is such a moving target (because the level/mission/game design keeps getting tweaked right up to crunch time). We didn't get really decent physics until it got abstracted into middleware that could have serious development resource thrown at it (reused for lots of titles). We won't have really decent game AI until the same thing happens; it is starting to with procedural content, there is an assortment of middleware you can get for that.

Does anyone even care about procedural content? (IE - real people, not developers.) My biggest problem with "sandbox" games is that developers make you do stupid shit like having to walk everywhere for an hour just to get to your next destination because they're fat nerds more focused on the technical aspects than making the game "fun".

What is Sarevok even asking? How to make sandbox games better? How technologies will improve sandbox experiences? The role of multiplayer and player forces in sandbox games? Does he even know what a 'sandbox' game is?

Because it amuses me that Space Rangers 2 already does pretty much everything mentioned in this thread, making it the best sandbox game ever. Player interaction, dynamic events, procedural content (well, galaxy setup), persistent universe, etc.

Starglider and Hawx are right, because publishers want 'sandboxyness' combined with a set, controllable 'product', which totally defeats the purpose of pretending its flexible. The best traditional sandbox game is Saints Row 2, because it actually for serious DOESN'T force you down a stupid plot, instead allowing you to mix and match three stupid plots.

The idea that games like RFG and DF should lead the way in sandbox games somehow is great stuff, though.

Bradbury wrote:You can say that about pretty much every game genre, and they do it because it sells games. I'd love for a really good company to work on a sandbox game that's Oblivion-style and actually decide to prioritize the AI interactions and gameplay over the next-gen graphics and pretty screenshots.

Don't get your hopes up, I was at a conference where Rockstar had a presentation a few weeks ago. They spoke to us for forty-five minutes about innovation in the industry and how they are trail blazers in electronic story telling. At the end they revealed their only new content of the show, a downloadable episode for Red Dead Redemption that involves zombies.

Coming from the someone who just plays the games, many big budget titles seem to spend more money on lighting effects and motion blur and so on and all these other things to cover up a low framerate and middling texture artwork. Whenever a new "benchmark" title is being hyped up like LA Noire or the recent GTA games all we hear about is groundbreaking motion capture techniques and new face tracking for better facial expressions. But if you look at something like say Morrowind compared to Oblivion, Oblivion has "better" graphics in that it has a lot of light bloom and so on but the actual texture artwork is superior and more ambitious in Morrowind. I think the former has already aged better than the latter because of this, its actual world looks more interesting compared to its sequel.

I'm not one of these really elitist folk that hates any game that doesn't purely use 2D sprites. However, I do get frustrated that graphics get prioritized JUST for those impressive screen shots and not for how they'll function in the game itself. Heh as a console gamer I feel like I have to apologize since after Halo came out it suddenly became okay for $30 million to be spent developing a game that runs at 24FPS. What I'd really love for open world games (and it goes hand in hand with developing the world rather than the AI and the population) is not necessarily that the graphics take a hit, but that the graphical design is based around making the game world work as a game again and not as an impressive slide show gallery for the websites to hype.

I'll mention King's Field and Metroid Prime again because I have an irrational love of those series, the latter is locked at 60FPS and has minimal load times, yet looks great because instead of laying on the normal mapping the effort was put into painstakingly making every little corner of the game unique. Their worlds also feel consistent and in a way more realistic because they're designed with minimal (or in a bold move on Metroid Prime's content, zero) human element. There's no AI gaffs, and there's no huge disconnect between the way you control your character in the open world and the way you HAVE to play your character in the storyline missions.

"Where do we go from sandbox gaming," we go to to shrinking the sandbox but having more toys in it. As Starglider said, this is no easy task since the current trend is that every second of the experience has be a controlled epic setpiece nowadays instead of something like Deus Ex where the areas are much smaller but you can do whatever.

I'm sorry I don't have something handy cite, but I'm under the impression that very few people actually play a game from start to finish. So the games that are playing it safe and close to the Hollywood formula have a single player experience that's either very short and practically on rails like Gears of War, or in a vast "open world" like GTAIV that may as well not be open since all the progress is very restricted. So like Starglider said doing what needs to be done to actually make open world games interesting again probably isn't going to happen any time soon.

AI always takes the biggest hit, which is why I don't even care if a game has a dense population in it or not at this point. I'd rather every big game just stole whatever trick IOI used in Hitman Blood Money and the first Kane and Lynch where they had a giant mesh that took the form of a huge crowd of people you could wade through. The AI developers have to settle with now isn't any better than what was available in Deus Ex, and while I'd love for a game where the programmers are able to really take the time to make the AI special like the marines in Half-Life 1 I don't see it happening any time soon. Everyone remembers the horrible AI in the final release of Oblivion and how they had that great AI made for it that was "too good" so they had to pull the plug on it.

Zaune wrote:Seven posts and nobody's mentioned Dwarf Fortress yet? For shame!

Seriously, though, DF has to be almost everything a sandbox game ought to be. The alpha version already includes procedural world-map generation that simulates rainfall, mean temperature and erosion, and then generates a thousand-odd years of backstory for the various civilisations. Your individual citizens get a random selection of individual personality traits and likes and dislikes (even if they're all bipolar, absent-minded alcoholics) and there are no winning conditions save what you choose for yourself. And to top it off, it's incredibly easy to add user-created content.

The lack of a win condition is a weakness in and of itself. The game compensates for this with a sheer learning curve that prevents people from realizing that a state of equilibrium is very boring once it forms. That's why late-game material is all about absurd megaprojects and deliberately destroying one's fortresses. The lack of significant continuity between the various gameplay modes- but Dwarf Fortress is atypical, though it represents going too far in the other direction as of now.

General Zod wrote:Does anyone even care about procedural content? (IE - real people, not developers.) My biggest problem with "sandbox" games is that developers make you do stupid shit like having to walk everywhere for an hour just to get to your next destination because they're fat nerds more focused on the technical aspects than making the game "fun".

Well, procedural content would be valuable for relatively short games or highly replayable games, but most sandbox games take pride in their length and most avert replayability by having a single story path.

My personal thought on sandbox games:

The game should define victory in such a way that there are multiple clear paths to it, whether these are varied stories/plotlines, or a victory condition that allows the player significant flexibility in obtaining it, or both. Example: Say that your goal is to become king of a medieval fantasy kingdom. Your paths to doing so could include orchestrating the king's death and usurping him, marrying his daughter/son, overthrowing him with an army, using magic to impersonate his long-lost heir, make yourself regent and then usurp, become adopted by him, and combinations of these. The point is that each of these would play very differently in practice, rather than in theory. These paths should also be equally rewarding: if I'm given the choice between hero and merchant, there had better be some fine merchanting in the game.

Bakustra wrote: Example: Say that your goal is to become king of a medieval fantasy kingdom. Your paths to doing so could include orchestrating the king's death and usurping him, marrying his daughter/son, overthrowing him with an army, using magic to impersonate his long-lost heir, make yourself regent and then usurp, become adopted by him, and combinations of these. The point is that each of these would play very differently in practice, rather than in theory. These paths should also be equally rewarding: if I'm given the choice between hero and merchant, there had better be some fine merchanting in the game.

So Fable 3?

Wow, a thread about sandbox games sure needs a pile of ranting about load times and Morrowind.

Frankly I'm not even sure AI is a limiting factor at all; the only complex AI required is at a relatively high level. Individuals having 3-5 basic behaviours is totally fine, and wasting time on RADIANT AI of stupid shit is just a waste of time. Persistent populations is NOT necessary to an effective sandbox game - but of course, Space Rangers 2 has one anyway, along with multiple routes to victory (which are more or less viable depending on the random galaxy).

General Zod wrote:

Bakustra wrote: Example: Say that your goal is to become king of a medieval fantasy kingdom. Your paths to doing so could include orchestrating the king's death and usurping him, marrying his daughter/son, overthrowing him with an army, using magic to impersonate his long-lost heir, make yourself regent and then usurp, become adopted by him, and combinations of these. The point is that each of these would play very differently in practice, rather than in theory. These paths should also be equally rewarding: if I'm given the choice between hero and merchant, there had better be some fine merchanting in the game.

So Fable 3?

Will it really have a wide range of possible paths to take on the way, though? What it seems like from the website is that it'll be more morality-based (enlightened or tyrannical), rather than using multiple different gameplay paths. I'm thinking more along the lines of having sneaky options, physical options, mystical options, and social options, all of which would be substantially different in play style. But that is probably not quite practical.

Stark wrote:Wow, a thread about sandbox games sure needs a pile of ranting about load times and Morrowind.

Frankly I'm not even sure AI is a limiting factor at all; the only complex AI required is at a relatively high level. Individuals having 3-5 basic behaviours is totally fine, and wasting time on RADIANT AI of stupid shit is just a waste of time. Persistent populations is NOT necessary to an effective sandbox game - but of course, Space Rangers 2 has one anyway, along with multiple routes to victory (which are more or less viable depending on the random galaxy).

Tell me more about this Space Rangers 2. I agree about the behaviors. What's needed (and that's what Dwarf Fortress misses, to my mind) is verisimilitude rather than simulation. If background characters look good in the background, that's all you'll need.

Bakustra wrote: Will it really have a wide range of possible paths to take on the way, though? What it seems like from the website is that it'll be more morality-based (enlightened or tyrannical), rather than using multiple different gameplay paths. I'm thinking more along the lines of having sneaky options, physical options, mystical options, and social options, all of which would be substantially different in play style. But that is probably not quite practical.

I don't see the point in having so many options when sometimes there really is only one way to achieve a goal. Otherwise it feels forced.

That's what he's saying, though; that you need to put work into all the options to make them valid instead of just saying 'lol kill the king or waste time for 80 hours'.

Bakustra, Space Rangers is basically top-down Elite with an actual goal. You get a galaxy with stars, planets and starbases (divided by role), including factions like the teamsters, pirates, five governments, etc. You can trade, quest, fight, steal,etc to gain money (although they have different requirements so they're not really equally valid). This is supported by starbases etc; there are trade bases that lend you money (yeah I know, debt finance in a game, I was blown away too) or do analysis to find trade routes for you, or invest money in stations of your own. Of course these change as the economy is entirely dynamic and the teamsters will notice and do it themselves. And of course you can use Space Google to find the price of anything anywhere at any time, and check the newswire to find out about pirates and borg attacks.

Oh yeah, and the borg are trying to destroy society and the military will fight them. You can help, either through direct combat, funding, or questing, and your input of captured technology into science bases directly affects the speed of coalition development and brings out new hardware for ships, which will be 'prototype' very expensive and large for a time and then become 'mass produced' for much cheaper.

Pirates, traders and other rangers are all persistent (although very slowly replaced) and you can recruit people you outrank to help you, your reputation helps you (ie even a trader is relatively safe in high-traffic systems because the other teamsters will help them) and some quests will change it. The NPCs even ninja-loot during borg attacks, just like sensible humans.

If you convert things like 'planets' to 'shops' and 'ships' to 'important people', the model should work in a typical crime-city sandbox game and fantasty Europa 1400 games.

Stark wrote:That's what he's saying, though; that you need to put work into all the options to make them valid instead of just saying 'lol kill the king or waste time for 80 hours'.

Bakustra, Space Rangers is basically top-down Elite with an actual goal. You get a galaxy with stars, planets and starbases (divided by role), including factions like the teamsters, pirates, five governments, etc. You can trade, quest, fight, steal,etc to gain money (although they have different requirements so they're not really equally valid). This is supported by starbases etc; there are trade bases that lend you money (yeah I know, debt finance in a game, I was blown away too) or do analysis to find trade routes for you, or invest money in stations of your own. Of course these change as the economy is entirely dynamic and the teamsters will notice and do it themselves. And of course you can use Space Google to find the price of anything anywhere at any time, and check the newswire to find out about pirates and borg attacks.

Oh yeah, and the borg are trying to destroy society and the military will fight them. You can help, either through direct combat, funding, or questing, and your input of captured technology into science bases directly affects the speed of coalition development and brings out new hardware for ships, which will be 'prototype' very expensive and large for a time and then become 'mass produced' for much cheaper.

Pirates, traders and other rangers are all persistent (although very slowly replaced) and you can recruit people you outrank to help you, your reputation helps you (ie even a trader is relatively safe in high-traffic systems because the other teamsters will help them) and some quests will change it. The NPCs even ninja-loot during borg attacks, just like sensible humans.

If you convert things like 'planets' to 'shops' and 'ships' to 'important people', the model should work in a typical crime-city sandbox game and fantasty Europa 1400 games.

It's like you read my mind, man. That does sound like an excellent model in many ways. Why is it that some of the most interesting games are made by little European studios? Mount&Blade, this, Witcher... okay, forget Paradox, but still.

(This is based on my experience with the GTA series and Oblivion)

I'd like to see in a sandbox game is a feel that you are in a big city that is teaming with life. For example, gridlock during rush hour, or alot of people milling around in the downtown core. GTA IV addressed part of it by having more people around but they are lifeless. I'd like to see a bunch of drunks stumbling out of a bar or people waiting in line to get in a club. Stuff like that. It isn't critical to have it but it provides a great ambiance.

Also, a persistent gameplay. That coupled with complete environment destructibility would be awesome. Imagine taking a car, make it into a bomb and park it in the middle of a bridge and then blow it. Depending how big the blast, the bridge could be partially or completely destroyed. Then you can go off and do some missions and after a few game days you'll see either the bridge being repaired or demolished and a new one being built. Eventually a new bridge is up but with a different architectural style. This can be applied to houses, buildings, factories, airports, etc... You get the picture. This would liven up the game.

As for vehicles, ditto as mentioned above. Every vehicle should be destructible. That includes trains and ships. When vehicles explode, it shouldn't just be a burnt out shell of a car\truck\what have you, but it should be a twisted mess (depending on the force of the explosion). Also, why not have the ability to buy a car? Buy a car and if you trash it you can have the option of having it towed and repaired. Afterwards, you can either pick it up or have it towed to whatever house you own. I'd also like to see better damage modeling and vehicles in various states of disrepair. Steal a car only to realize that it is leaking oil and you are not going to go far. Stuff like that. GTA IV barely touched upon it except their shitty cars after you fix them remain shitty rustbuckets. I've got more ideas on vehicles but this is enough for now.

Continuing on the complete destructibility, everything should be able to be destroyed. What kind of smart thinking did the developers have letting gamers be able to take down traffic lights with their cars but fly through the windshield when you hit a bus shelter? Why are they invincible? Ditto for certain fences and concrete dividers.

I'd also like to see the option to enter any building in the game instead of looking at towering painted blocks.

Oh and I hate ghost cars. You know, no matter the drawing distance, you look one way and cars appear and then drive to the opposite end and disappear. I'd like to see them persist. Even though the cars go beyond the character's field of view, if I were to jump in a car and pursue a particular vehicle, I'd like to know that it is still there driving around instead of vanishing off the face of the earth.

The police. They are the most laziest bunch of organized crooks around. You can crash into other cars or go through red lights and sometimes kill people in their presence and they don't budge but bump their car by accident and by god watch them try to hunt you down. Why can't they be portrayed as actual cops? Speed and be ticketed. Go through a red light and be ticketed. Commit vehicular manslaughter or recklessly smash other vehicles or buildings and be arrested. They should also be more persistent. Remove the leave a certain area and the cops will stop pursuing you. Let the keep going after you until you are either taken down and arrested (and later lose everything thing you carry including money but not the clothes. ), killed off or in someway bribe the police (I.E. call the police and wire bribe money or if the cop stops you, you can have the option of bribing a cop to let you go). The populous can also help out. A local radio\T.V. station picks up the police chase and interrupts a radio\television\etc.. broadcast to relay the chase to the public and to help the police locate the player if you manage to hide from the cops. This would definitely liven up police chases.

Though it has been addressed, I'd like a more open approach to carrying out a mission. For example, if a mission involves meeting certain people with the intent of killing them then why not be able ahead of the scheduled meeting time, go to the rendez-vous and hide some explosives so that when the fighting starts you can press the button and kaboom! there goes your enemies. In other words, something akin to the Hitman series.

Also, when committing a crime, in a modern setting, it is easier to get in trouble no matter where you are and be labeled as a killer\murderer or a nice guy do to modern technology. But in a medieval setting, slaughtering everyone in a town, leaving no witnesses shouldn't mean that the whole world will immediately know or even know at all. If I kill an Imperial guard out in the sticks, I should not be arrested once I enter an Imperial town at the other end of the game map. Even if you commit a heinous crime and let a witness escape, it should take time before everyone else or anyone else knows about it. But there should be some fun in it. Like telephone tag, the more the news spreads to other towns, the more the crimes you commit and your appearance would be distorted so that instead of you killing off all of a farmer's livestock, leaving the farmer destitute, by the time it reaches the far ends of the game, people would be told of a old man with one leg who slaughtered all of the children in an orphanage run by rutabagas.

That is all I have for now. Feel free to rip it apart.

Totally unrealistic expectations are unrealistic. Increase map size, quality and interactivity while retaining the entire world as persistence?

Enigma wrote:(This is based on my experience with the GTA series and Oblivion)

I'd like to see in a sandbox game is a feel that you are in a big city that is teaming with life. For example, gridlock during rush hour, or alot of people milling around in the downtown core. GTA IV addressed part of it by having more people around but they are lifeless. I'd like to see a bunch of drunks stumbling out of a bar or people waiting in line to get in a club. Stuff like that. It isn't critical to have it but it provides a great ambiance.

Play Yakuza 3. Not a sandbox game but it has plenty of ambiance.

Also, when committing a crime, in a modern setting, it is easier to get in trouble no matter where you are and be labeled as a killer\murderer or a nice guy do to modern technology. But in a medieval setting, slaughtering everyone in a town, leaving no witnesses shouldn't mean that the whole world will immediately know or even know at all. If I kill an Imperial guard out in the sticks, I should not be arrested once I enter an Imperial town at the other end of the game map. Even if you commit a heinous crime and let a witness escape, it should take time before everyone else or anyone else knows about it. But there should be some fun in it. Like telephone tag, the more the news spreads to other towns, the more the crimes you commit and your appearance would be distorted so that instead of you killing off all of a farmer's livestock, leaving the farmer destitute, by the time it reaches the far ends of the game, people would be told of a old man with one leg who slaughtered all of the children in an orphanage run by rutabagas.

That always pissed me off about Fallout 3's the Pitt addon. If you decide to side with the enemy leader that's oppressing workers everybody instantly knows about it even though there's no possible way aside from magic and you can't use any speech challenges to convince them otherwise.

The OP was asking for the next step in sandbox gaming, and we get ridiculous laundry-lists of unrealistic and outrageous features current technology doesn't allow to be implemented and which are pointless from a gameplay perspective (OMG I WANT TO ENTER EVERY BUILDING!!!)?

I knew this would happen

To answer the OP's question, I imagine graphics will start to peak (or have peaked) and more attention will be given to fiddling with the world. You already see such stuff slowly being added to those kind of games, like all the diversions and minigames, in-game cell phones (you can call 911 in SR2 ), maybe improvements to AI or persistence (San Andreas tries to give persistence with the customizable cars etc. but they disappeared if left for more than two minutes Probably a technology limitation, though). But it will all be gradual, rather than revolutionary.