Will Ma'iq the Liar be on-board? I love stealing his Skooma.

I think you will like Embers of Caerus.

That is first person and probably the most sandbox mmo ever planned. The landmark is something like 10 times that of Mortal Online. Personally I am a fan of the 3rd person view but with a combat that would be a mix of War of the Roses with Dark souls which would be way more realistic than either MO or even the crappy darkfall combat.

I agree also. I edited my question to a more simple, less-stress inducing one xD

Embers of Caerus is vaporware and will never be released. The fact that they have to ask gamers to give them money is the obvious clue. People who have been playing these games for a while have already dealt with this type of scam, if you remember Dawn you have already went down this road. Something will happen, something will be delayed and somehow the "company" will dissolve and people will ask what happened to all that money, just like it happened with Horizons.

Seriously, they are asking people to donate thousands of dollars. Does this not raise a red flag? Anyone? Every day people start businesses, most of them fail. That is the nature of business. But when you need capital, they system is already in place. You do not ask your customers for money, you go to banks or the LEGIONS of businesses or investment institutions whose main goal is to actually finance things like that. You get your business plan together, you make a pitch to people with capital who do this for a living and they either say yes or no.

So instead of pointing the OP to a scam, why not point him to actual games in development with actual financial backing that do not have to rely on the OPs money to get them going.

If you are lookig for a sandbox game and are trying to find one that is of some quality, try ArcheAge. It is a Korean MMO but there are lots of things in that game sandbox players are looking for. It is a big step up from games like Darkfall, WURM online or Mortal Online because it has more money in it and does not play like a indie game.

With the massive success of WOW, everyone is looking to cash in on these games and they have started to become costly like movies are. Somehow it costs hundreds of millions of dollars to produce a legit, AAA MMO. With that comes the games who simply cannot afford that price of development and end up being like Mortal Online....you know, the "game with potential" that never panned out. Also with the massive amount of money comes the scam MMOs like Embers of Caerus. Get the money and get out, lol, like the Wall Street buy out artists of the 80s.

TESO has come at the end of the themepark cycle where gamers are bored to death with the litany of WOW clones. Unfortunately, the game has been in the oven for quite a few years so at this stage it is unlikey to change very much. Bad timing is all, but that happens.

SOE is working on EQ Next. There is very little info about it and whether or not you like(d) their games or not, they are a legit company with big time money to back up their projects.

IMO there are just way to many of these games out or in development. It reminds me of the early 80s when Pac Man came out, and them came the Pac Man clones and then came the assembly line games and then came the Mexican burial site...lol. Go to MMORPG.COM and go to their list of games....look at how many they are.

Most of the sandbox MMOs are coming out of Asia.

I guess you have never heard of kickstarter. The only reason Embers of Caerus exists is because of this idea of making games possible that weren't before. You yourself even said MMOs are a massive undertaking and the "best" ones costs hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. If it were the only game out there using this development model then you may be on to something, but kickstarter exists to make games possible that otherwise wouldn't be. Nothing in this world is guaranteed and it could potentially never come to fruition (that has happened to plenty of MMOs that were funded), but you don't have to donate to the cause.

I do agree that it seems players are getting tired of themeparks and WoW clones, but I seriously doubt they will take a turn backwards to sandbox games. Money will always be the number one motivator and sandboxes have never proven to be cash cows. If anything we can expect MMORPGs to become more and more casual to the point where it's just one large social network like Facebook with e-sports involved. That is likely the sad and unfortunate future of MMORPGs, as casuals and F2P models are where the money is at.

I lol'd when you stated SOE was a "legit" company though. I take it you never played Star Wars Galaxies, The Matrix Online, Vanguard, or really any of their titles. The only thing SOE is good at is destroying games, pissing off their consumers, and continuously developing mediocre to bad MMOs rather than improve the ones they already have. Everquest is their only saving grace as it was their baby and none of their games would be possible otherwise. What's ironic about EQ is that SOE didn't even develop it. They merely bought up the company who did and profited.

Hopefully my prediction about MMOs is wrong and we will once again get games with actual depth and substance. That, however, is likely wishful thinking and nothing more. If ESO is a solid title though, hopefully it will be enough, at least for a while.