Eve is a sand box game, eso is not, stating your opinons to be otherwise does not change the fact that you are wrong ^

I don't play it on rails, so many times I have created a character soley to RP them, In oblivion I created a wandering merchant, and a travelling knight. in skyrim I made an orc hunter who lives in a stronghold, and a treasure hunter who hoards all known artifacts.

but the fact of the matter is without quests theres almost nothing to do in the game;

I can't affect economy and take advantage of price inflation (because there is none) as my merchant.

I can't create a knights chapter and build an awesome fort, then surround it with a city and declare my self a king as my knight.

I can't rise to the top of my stronghold as an orc hunter and get all the women.

I can't create a super secret hideout as my treasure hunter, I mean I can hoard artifacts, but whats the point? once I get all of them theres nothing else to do but take quests.

in a sandbox game you can do all of these things, but this is my point, you can't do whatever you want, unless you do quests the game gets boring fast because there just isn't anything to do.

I would argue that those are the limitations of it being single player, not a designed to play theme park. you can do those things with mods and the mod engine was designed by the devs so you can do it. The only difference in gary's mod is that the mod engine has an in game interface.

and I would argue back that Mount and blade lets you do all this things, and is a single player game. I can delcare myself a king and declare war against other factions, I can create a brotherhood of knights, I can become a noble knight in a factions court and take part in wars earning myself ownership of towns and villages. I can become a wandering merchent and take advantage of price inflation, I can become a bandit and rob simple peasants or raise a bandit army and pillage towns and villages. you get the idea.

In TES you can't do any of those things, and almost everything revolves around quests. Im not bashing it at all, I still love the games, but calling TES sandbox is a joke.

Megaservers are going to really make naming characters problematic. You'll probably have to add your own surname as i'm pretty sure titles can be attained in the actual game.

Those who pre-order the game and get early access will definitely have the upper hand at creating their characters.

My best advice would be if you played the beta and were happy with your beta characters, reproduce them all before starting with a single character.

No matter how radically different was your game, when the themepark ride ended, we all killed Alduin.

When you undock in Eve-online, there is no end. Just some side "quests" that you can do for little money. Only player driven content, emergent gameplay exist.

My character names are rarely if ever taken. So i'm not worried

Actually, that is a funny point. THE GAME DID NOT END! I was able to keep playing for an unlimited amount of time.

Nothing else changed. Again, free roam is not sandbox.

Keep these complaints coming! It's good to let ZOS know that your issues with the games linearity go much farther than butchering the starter island intro can fix.

you could build homes, decide the dominate power faction of the world, kill damn near anyone, marry people of your choice. help, hurt, or ignore any faction you chose or just do nothing but horde treasure by dungeon diving.

You sir, have a very odd idea of themepark.

The only thing that drives me nuts is the zone partitioning. I get that they want to partition by alliance and level range but they could have still made the transition fluid between zones. Heck, for all the grief WoW gets they got that bit right in that you only needed to see a loading screen when transferring to a different continent. I'm sure someone will argue that this is architecturally in-feasible and toss the word "Megaserver" in there. The thing is, this design decision counters what I always saw as the most attractive aspect of the Elder Scrolls series! Sure you still had to have a loading transition to enter dungeons, but outside of that you had the ENTIRE world to explore without a loading screen and with very few, if any, invisible walls corralling players into the areas of the theme-park they are allowed to go. I saw that as an Elder Scrolls signature, something by which to compare other games! Sure the lore was great, but I didn't even bother with the main storyline in Oblivion and I still loved that game!

I've since given up my rage, this is the way it's going to be. I intend to enjoy it for what it is, an MMO with old-style zoning but with some unique mechanics, and Elder Scrolls themed lore and graphics. I'll still be cheering for the release, just not as loud as I could have been.

you completely ignored my post, but ill say it again as you're still going on about this. there is absolutely no sandbox features in TES as there in actual single player sandbox games, period.

you can't create factions, you can't create kingdoms, you can't pillage villages, you can't exploit the economy, you can't become a noble, you can't become a highway man and rob people blind, you can't join a noble house. all these are things present in real single player sandbox games. and none can be done in a TES game. it all revolves around quests.

You CAN exploit the economy, you CAN pillage villages, you CAN become a noble, you CAN become a highwayman. Did you chose those things ironically?

Actually you really can't exploit the economy, as everything sells for the same no matter where you are. It's not an actual economy. And pillaging villages doesn't change a thing. You'll get an occasional person coming after you, but doesn't actually change anything in game. Becoming a noble simply give you a housecarl and a house (you can recruit an army, betray the king and literally become the king through the betrayal). You are so limited in what your actions actually effect.

So to be a sandbox you have to be able to do these things the way you think they should be done? I am not arguing that Skyrim was the same as minecraft but you don't have to use your right hand 100% of the time to be right handed either.

still its hope, whit sandbox. Even EVE have a none sandbox starting area. And so far ESO its mostly a starting area.

So i hope they ad sandbox elements, spec in the borderland and cost areas

yeah the world is still definitely viable for some good Sandbox elements. Non-instanced housing is not very likely but there is room for other options.

1) theres no economy. at all. merchants are given a certain amount of cash and its reset after a certain amount of time, the goods they are given are random. its is impossible to exploit the economy because there is no economy. there are no producers or manufacturers. there are no transport wagons that get these goods from point A to point B. which means that no, you can't exploit the economy.

2) you can pillage villages in the sense that you go in by yourself and steal all their food, but really? none of it respawns like it should, it just stays empty forever. also you can't start a bandit gang, or make a cool hideout. again, possible in a sandbox but not possible in TES.

3) yes, you can gain the 'title' of thane. but what does it get you? a follower. thats it. no one recognizes you, you aren't called to help your liege-lord. you can't attend court. you shouldn't even call it a title as you hear it once when you get named and then never again. the way people remain the same its like nothing happened. and again, does this give you access to a fort? can you build an army to defend your hold from bandits or rebels? no.

4) if by highwayman you consider killing an unnamed NPC and looting his corpse. then yeah. but the bounty gets dropped as he gets killed. you never gain a reputation, you never become the infamous highwayman of whiterun, the same highwayman that guards seek out to capture. and where are the "give me all your money and stuff?" options? maybe I don't want to be a mindless barbarian killing everything in my path. maybe I want to actually rob people instead of just going on a mindless killing spree.

so I'll say it again, and hope this time your skull absorbs it. all of these features are present in real single player sandbox games, but not in TES. it is not a sandbox game in the slightest, and nothing you have said is even remotely proving me wrong.

It's not a sandbox, because nothing really changes without it being guided by quests (just like in this game) and those quests are very limited on the objectives you can do.. Again, go play mount and blade to see what an actual sandbox is.

Holy crap are you serious? You just explained how in fact this is a sandbox but that it isn't because the ways these things were done didn't meet your rigid expectations. Additionally your last sentence heavily implies that you are a minor. This explains much and as far as I am concerned ends the discussion.

M&B doesn't let you do half the stuff you can do in gary's mod or minecraft so its not a sandbox either. In fact, minecraft didn't let you do evey thing you could do in a developers console so its not sandbox either.

Where are you people coming up with this rigid view of what a sandbox is?

Not sure why this is confusing.

Why is the term "sandbox" used? Because you can sculpt things out of sand in a sandbox. A sandbox mmo is a game that is primarily a collection of systems players can use to make things.

Why is the term "themepark" used? Because a themepark is already layed out with games and rides for you. You do not create anything yourself. You are along for the ride. In an mmo the developers created the world and content for you to explore and enjoy.

So ... in TES games (outside of mods) including ESO do you construct the world? NO. Do you build homes? NO. Do you mine actual terrain or cut down actual trees? NO. Is everything in game crafted by players?. NO.

ESO is a themepark game. As with most themepark mmos some sandbox elements are typically included (crafting). Exploring the world has NOTHING to do with being a sandbox. The devs could have created the largest mmo world every imagined for you to explore but if the player has no long term impact on that world (as is the case in TES and ESO) it is still a themepark.

A themepark does not have to be on rails. A themepark does not mean the game doesn't allow freedom and exploration. A themepark game does not automatically mean "raids" or massively horizontal progression. Those are merely the leveling mechanics which can be different across the board.

So if ESO was a sandbox game it would mean that WE the players would be allowed to create our own cities, our own factions, our own economy, our own politics, our own lore and sculpt the world as we saw fit. NO TES GAME HAS EVER ALLOWED THIS! ESO is a game with a pre-set lore, pre-set factions and we are just along for the ride. I would be impossible to have such deep lore in a sandbox. It is the same for any major IP. You can't just make a game in Middle Earth that changes every bit of written lore. It just isn't that sort of world to do such a thing. ESO could allow players the ability to constuct homes or even have a farm but likely all of this would be instanced or it would impact the main land masses too much. All ESO will ever be is a themepark game with far less restriction than conventional themepark games have been.

It can still be a perfectly good game as a themepark. I am completely sure that the majority of people upset over ESO not being sandbox have no clue what a real sandbox game is and obviously have no clue that it would shatter the concept of this Fantasy IP. They have no clue because suggesting such a thing makes entirely zero sense.

the fact you can't even dispute my points but in turn try to call me a kid, and end the discussion shows me you know you're wrong but are too stubborn to admit it. literally none of the points I provided are achievable in any way.