A Theme Park MMOs involve interacting with the environment and scripted content, with the best way to progress being to find the optimal solution and grind for XP.

WHILE

Ultima Online and EVE Online are both examples of sandbox MMOs. The "emergence" that takes place when players are given the tools to interact with one another and the outside environment is the type of experience that sandbox games are made to provide. Sandbox games still frequently contain some environmental information, but it's typically added to offer the game some structure and give players some goals to work toward until they fully integrate into the community.

A User On Reddit

According to this user on reddit 👾 a “Sandbox MMO” is one where the goal is emergence and a lesser amount guidance (in the sense of having clear quests) are the goal. I personally would agree with what this user said, although I believe that it takes a bit more than just those two things.

This thing we labeled as emergence is something for both types of mmo, and every game needs to truly be successful. What is that you might ask, and simply put, it's good world building.

Although the community is trash (please forgive me if you work for Riot) League of Legends has done a great job in world building. They’ve created a world (more like a universe) where they have different races, characters, and civilizations from those places and races that are significant. A world where different regions have different conflicts internally and externally, example being Demacia and Noxus. Things like this really build into the emergence of the game. Even more so, they write backgrounds on champions they allow their fanbase to play in their game. A really cool one would be Rengar and Kha’zix both have backstories having each other intertwined in that story, which only adds to their effect.

The second thing a game needs to be a great Sandbox MMO is to have self guided experiences or story, and this is something I feel many games have not done necessarily very well, and is also why I wanted to mention the game Pax Dei!

But before we do I wanted to give some examples of what a sandbox mmo would be like. Some consist of really deep lore that you read in a book. You killed an enemy and their final words were “She will come for y-you”. Things that seem like nothing to scoff at tend to be much more significant and impactful than you realize at first.

It's these types of experiences where there is not a clear “quest line", but there are many mysteries in the world I'm playing that I need to go out and find the answer to. Skyrim : Elder Scrolls V had it almost done right, where you’d pick up a book ;and be given a quest, but a true self guided experience needs that quest bar to be removed, allow players to read the book and to figure out the next steps for themselves (obviously give them the necessary information to do so), that is what would make a game super great!

With all this said there is a new game rising to the occasion of this type of mmo, and I’m very excited to see what they have planned. I have done some poking around to figure out what this game is about, and I truly believe that this game could be something cool!

Now to be frank, we have all heard that before. All games when they are getting developed and ready for release look, sound, and seem amazing. This one caught my eye (not saying I have anything but an ordinary eye) and it seemed different. The company heading this game is called Mainframe Industries, and it's full of seasoned developers in the field of MMOs, who have all wanted to create a game like the game Pax Dei. It's like their passion project!

So for me, that is super encouraging to hear, not only are they super skilled, but they have been wanting to make a game like this. In my mind that means it's going to give us aspects of gaming that were not given to us in other games.

Here is the most recent tweet from the game Pax Dei. I will do a more in depth post for this game soon revealing everything coming to the game!