Sandboxes are a type of MMO that emphasize player freedom and expression. They frequently include mechanics for building, crafting, trading, character customization and development, roleplaying, destruction, and significant interaction with the world and other players. A sandbox that is dominated by an open-PvP or free-for-all ruleset is sometimes pejoratively called a gankbox. Contrast with the themepark.
sandbox
EVE Evolved: Fitting Tech 3 Tactical Destroyers as PvP brawlers
The past few months have seen a flood of frequent updates hitting EVE Online, and among them we got a whole new class of...
ArcheAge makes amends for past mistakes by banning bots and easing up on RNG
In responding to a post on ArcheAge's official forums about the game's missteps and its future, CM Seraphina Brennan assured players that Trion is...
The Game Archaeologist: Kingdom of Drakkar
Kingdom of Drakkar, also known as Drakkar or even Kingdom of Drakkar II, is a really odd duck among the annals of MMO history....
Ambitious Project Gorgon is back on Kickstarter
Third time's the charm for Project Gorgon's Kickstarter, right? We hope so, as the ambitious indie fantasy sandpark is asking for a modest $20,000...
Shroud of the Avatar on troll fights and more
Shroud of the Avatar's latest newsletter was published this weekend, and Portalarium uses it to talk further about the fantasy sandbox's obsidian architecture. As...
Star Citizen adds new flyable ships, highlights audio upgrades, and more
Star Citizen added the Merlin and the Scythe to its dogfighting module today, courtest of the 1.1.5 patch. The dev team also upped the...
The Stream Team: Stroll the streets of EverQuest Next’s Qeynos in Landmark
One key selling point of Landmark was how it gives players the chance to be a part of creating EverQuest Next. Through the...
Massively Overthinking: Dealing with toxicity in MMO communities
This week's Massively Overthinking comes to us from Kickstarter donor Dahui, who asks,
"What do you think MMO developers can do to try to minimize...
MMO devs pay tribute to Smedley
Former Daybreak CEO John Smedley may have been a polarizing figure to MMO gamers, but several high profile devs have spoken up in the...
Perpetuum aims to accelerate its update cadence [Update]
Sci-fi MMOÂ Perpetuum will soon be switching from long development phases to shorter ones, says Avatar Creations in a new dev post to players today....
ArcheAge’s China launch moved to August 6
If you think you waited a long while for ArcheAge as a western fan, imagine how the title's Chinese followers must feel. Tencent Games has delayed...
EVE Online offers players a big gift of skill points for unexpected downtime
Server issues happen. They are inevitable. The development teams behind games do everything within their power to make sure that they don't happen, but...
RuneScape offers new cat companions to highlight the World Wildlife Fund
Are big cats important to you while but not quite important enough to make you log out of RuneScape? Then the game's latest charity...
Trion Worlds purges Glyph of third-party games
Trion Worlds is apparently getting out of the game distribution service, as least when it comes to games made by other studios.
Scott Hartsman has...
Not So Massively: RUST assigns random genders; US Senator facilitates e-sports visas
Star Citizen rebalanced thrusters, hitpoints and weapons in its latest alpha release to the public test server, and the upcoming Star Marine FPS module...
Roberts calls b.s. on Star Citizen’s feature creep police
Chris Roberts hasn't really responded to all of the internet angst surrounding sci-fi virtual world Star Citizen. He's kinda been busy with, you know,...
Elite: Dangerous looks ahead to 1.4 ‘CQC Championship’ patch
Elite: Dangerous has held its first dedicated convention and is already racing ahead to its next major update. "We’re looking at weeks, rather than...
Shroud of the Avatar’s Long talks building narrative on top of a sandbox
Shroud of the Avatar's latest Update of the Avatar has been released. As per usual, it sums up the major happenings for Portalarium's crowdfunded...
Star Citizen’s FPS elements to feature ‘slow-paced tactical gameplay’ and consequences for death
Cloud Imperium has published another one of its weekly Star Marine status updates for Star Citizen. The post covers everything from engineering and coding...
The Daily Grind: What’s most important to you in a space sim?
I am still waiting for my dream space sim to dock at my port, and I'm not sure if it ever will. It's a...