Whilst trawling round Archeage sites I found this review which is a bit dated and things have changed – Review
It is just someones opinion though. I have not read all of it yet but will do through the course of the day.
I saw this straight away though and was pleased with what it says [except the bit were they say ‘complete’ the game lol], I am not into perma death and losing gear etc;
So… Is it a sandbox?
No.
It’s not that simple, but it is no sandbox. If anything, it is a sandpark(term coined by Fido). What this means is that yes, you have sandbox elements. You can craft stuff, have housing, destroy other player’s stuff but it is really limited. Everything can be repaired and only the newest additions (high gear upgrading, cars) can really break. The other big part of the game is made a thempark, where you can do it, but don’t have to do it and don’t lose anything if you fail. You have your instances, dungeons and you never need to do any of the crafting or housing. You can complete the game with just rushing through quests and doing the instances: And you WILL have fun with that if you like themepark-games.
So, ArcheAge is a hybrid. It has major sandbox elements, major themepark elements and combines them into a new type of game. A sandpark.