David

@malaclypse You can't go "of the horizon" in SWTOR, your in a box and if you get too near the edge of the box you either run into walls or instadie of exhaustion. In Wow, you could swim around the entire continent if you had the mind to do so, I know because I did it. You could cross zones anywhere you could get too not at carefully linked routes. The map was relatively contiguous not random sections sometime seperated by instadeath areas. There was a day night cycle, and the cities seemed like real cities.
I think exploration in SWtor is MUCH diminished from Wow's.

I would define a sandbox as a world with: 1) In-game systems designed to offer multiple avenues of advancement for your character in a variety of ways be it crafting, combat, exploring or political; 2) no invisible walls, all limits to travel ought to be firmly grounded in believable physics; 3) the ability to alter the world-scape either through player buildings, towns, or factions that can be manipulated to make your game experience different then others; 4) Much less scripted hand-holding such that each players path through the game is not identical.

I think their priorities were a bit off. When you don't have basics like a working follow command, resizeable UI, or a fluid combat system, then spending all your time and money on short term improvements like story cutscenes and voice acting is a bad idea. I would not in any way mind a Wow clone, provided it was well done and had some sense of style and humor, all the better if it was a sci-fi based game. What we got instead is a massively Single player focused game.

It was in old Naxxarasmus in plaguelands that I lost my taste for raiding. And A-N00b-Wrekkar was the mobs name that did it. (Anubrekhan). Get 40 people together and it seemed someone was always going afk and not moving from the circle of death, or standing in clumps for the spikes, or had no health stone for when they did get thrown in space.

The concept of death = bugs = more death = wipe was lost on these N00bs and after an endless nights in which I used up a good 500 gold worth of potions and resources (a lot at the time and for me half my total bank) and I basically lost my taste for hardcore raiding. Anything that requires 39 other people to not screw up is asking for a miracle in most cases.

Smaller raids are better although I hate the homogenization of classes Blizzard has undertaken with Wow in the last couple years. PS down with Deathknights!

which thing, they have two separate games one a single player rpg and one an mmo, and a third in the pipeline beyond that all using the same engine.

As I understood it it was a loan Guarantee, so the state is out nothing unless the company fails to make good on its loan. I also thought there was a 5 year minimum requirement for them to stay in RI if they accepted it.

You guys just have to be more selective and manually post those stories that really interest people instead of just signing up so your rss feed goes to Digg. One way is the equivalent of spam the other requires some editorial decision making and a little effort.

Digg is now just a corporate shill, for real variety go to reddit. of course you can't count on reddit being your publicity lapdog like Digg is. Which is why gaming reddit is right below massively on my bookmarks.

I don't think you know what a sandbox game means. Cryptics endless instances and mission based gameplay certainly are not it. Even Wow is more of a sandbox then any cryptic game out there simply by virtue of being a continuous world for the most part.

True sandbox games are UO, the original SWG, Shadowbane, and others. The do not rely primarily on having a linear quest series that guides you on rails to the end, they often do not have levels at all or even classes.

Sorry but downgrading graphic effects on a 6 year old game is never the answer. If the individual user is having problems they should be able to adjust the particle count and other graphics options and they can. The general game players should not be forced too by the game. Oh and the particle and spell effects are client side they have nothing to do with the server load.