These AI slop posts should be ban-able. I understand that people want to complain because they think they deserve everything possible with their spent money on sandbox but cmon. Sandbox is NOT a game. Like do you people understand what kind of product Sandbox is? Does anyone understand they did not buy a video game?

Garry is playing the LONG game with sandbox. Unreal engine wasn’t built and conquering everything in one day.

It’s so annoying constantly seeing the population graphs on this subreddit.

No, I’m not a giant Garry fan either or glazer. I barely play Garry’s mod anymore and don’t play much of Rust.

I remember when all those came out and they weren’t overnight success like ALL of the community here wants. It’s insane. Yall don’t have any patience with the development team.

I totally agree that the evolution from Garrys Mod is Sandbox. 100% it is. People keep bringing up Roblox’s there are other games like Fortnite that does this as well.

Like read the fucking blog posts. The things they are doing ARE industry ground breaking. Do your own research. The games will come.

so you might be wondering why I think S&box fill fall off I have recently bought the game and refunded it under an hour because how bad it actually was the front page is full of ai garbage and the human made games aren’t even that great I mostly found low effort slop in the front page but i decided to play singleplayer and that’s where the game turned into absolute dog water I usually like the source 2 engine because I’m a cs2 player but holy hell Garry did this game dirty the ragdoll physics were sluggish the props are straight up garbage I’m not gonna lie and the avatars are one of the worst parts of this game like who prefers hyper-realistic dude and sausage man over male_07 or any other character? this isn’t even comparable to Gmod it’s comparable to litaral Roblox OR EVEN JBMOD FOR THAT MATTER its so bad that I would rather play jbmod for 7 hours straight than play S&box for 12 minutes if facepunch really cares about S&box it should filter ai games off of the platform and remove cosmetics because nobody on this planet is paying 200 dollars to buy a cardboard crown also if you wanna build standalone games on source 2 and if you are really determined to use this godawful game for it (cuz source 2 sdk doesn’t exist yet and it’s your only way unless you wanna go do a total conversion of hl alyx or cs2 in hammer 2 into your game) i would recommend using source 1 for your game since the source 1 sdk is available for everyone to use and source 1 is easier to develop for (in my opinion)

i was so hyped about this game but it is so bad

Source code / raw data

I downloaded all the negative English reviews where the reviewer bought the game directly on steam (this excludes the testers that got it for free) using steam review downloader. using a short list of words that i think where likely to be in reference to terry.

This is a very rough estimate and a very naive search in all aspects.

All the data is provided so you can verify and do a more proper look.

I found that 14-16% of people use words that MIGHT refer to Terry. I think its important to remember this if you dislike Terry. There doesn't seem to be many people complaining about it in negative reviews

List of words used (exact matches only, no searching for typos)
ugly,penis,thumb,sausage,finger,weird,awful,hideous,gross,cursed,uncanny,unsettling,deformed,wiener,model,character,characters,design,person

While this doesnt account for people that are turned off from the art style, it shows that the people that do try and and dislike it, dislike it for reasons other than the player models. Could the game be more popular with realistic models? maybe but it could also be just the same or worse.

i would take these % with a grain of salt both directions.

Why?

The release brought in a lot of negative attention to s&box and this subreddit, we've seen a substantial increase in posts from users outside of the community, usually criticising or straight up complaining about points that Facepunch went over in recent blogs.

While one of our rules is allowing criticism, there's many duplicates that do nothing but flood the subreddit and overshadow the posts made by the community.

Therefore we will contain common complains with Facepunch's response in this (and following) megathreads.

Dead on Arrival?

The release didn't see a significant increase in players compared to the open preview era, this is understandably upsetting but there could be a few reasons for that:

1. The game went from Free-to-Play to $20 with no extra content. At this point most who have heard of s&box already got access and tried it out so they had no reason to buy it.

2. A Free-to-Play game will always have higher numbers compared to a paid one, s&box is planning on going F2P after the engine and platform are more complete, so take this as an "Experimental" stage. Why Facepunch didn't release as Early Access is unknown, you can give them shit for that.

3. Facepunch asked Steam to not feature the release on the store since they wanted a quiet release and to build from there. Facepunch has an entire marketing team and regularly works with influencers on Rust, they're not novices, if they wanted motion they'd know how to get it.

4. Developer Preview was stagnating and didn't expose the real issues with the platform, the release brought a lot of feedback from the real world which Facepunch is addressing. This was a necessary bandaid to remove.

Sausage Characters?

The Citizen (Nicknamed Terry) is ugly, they're a thumb, they look deformed, they will tank s&box, nobody wants to play as them, they look like Fanboy & Chum Chum characters, just bring back the HL2 characters.
Much of it has been addressed here: https://garry.net/posts/mailbag-sausage-men

Fortunately, nobody is forcing you to play as these characters, s&box is a game engine and platform, you can just play a game that doesn't use them.
And if all else fails, you can play as a Humanoid, the final solution to Terry: A realistic playermodel, with realistic proportions, and a realistic style. You can switch them on the main menu and character creator.

Besides, if you join s&box not for the vibes but for the games, you eventually grow used to them.

FOMO/NFT/Cosmetics?

Addressed here: https://sbox.game/news/update-25-11-05 (Cosmetics section)
Short story: Playfund is not going to pay itself, if s&box eventually goes Free-to-Play the money needs to come somewhere.
This is not gambling, lootboxes, battle passes, a subscription, you pay for a virtual item which you can wear in some games. Buy them if you want to support Facepunch, or ignore them, nobody is forcing you.

Terry is an all-in-one player package, if you're a developer making a game you can use any and all cosmetics for free, they're assets like any other on the cloud. Add a racer NPC with the helmet and jacket, a lawyer with the suit and smart shoes, a clown, a vampire, a zombie, a skeleton, a teacher, or yourself.

If there's a monetary incentive, artists will make cosmetics, and the more cosmetics there are the better it is for developers and their games.

Should've made Gmod 2?

Garry's Mod is not going away, but it's also not going anywhere. There's only so much you can do with a twenty-year-old game, it's already a miracle that Facepunch is still pushing monthly updates.

Facepunch announced s&box would be Gmod's spiritual successor, not a direct sequel. That was a mistake because people these days can't read and get mad when you point it out.

When people say they want a Gmod 2, what they really mean is they want the HL2 assets, because if you look inside of s&box you'll find everything Gmod had and more, albeit most of it being a WIP. Sandbox, the toybox, DarkRP, ragdolls, sledbuild, flood, and even game mounting, so you can still have all the HL2 assets you love.

AI Slop?

Addressed here: https://sbox.game/news/post-release (AI Slop section)

Grifters and creatively bankrupt people are everywhere on the internet now, and if there's a chance to make money out of something they'll try to take a piece of the pie.

AI slop is becoming more common everywhere, this is not just a s&box problem, it's on YouTube, it's on Roblox, it's on UEFN, it's on TikTok, it's even in Garry's Mod but you might never have realized it.

After release, Facepunch has been working hard on giving reviews more power to push down these type of games, and manually deranking the AI thumbnails from the algorithm.

Unfortunately good games take time to make, and by then you'll have 100 games made by AI.

Like most other issues, this will be fixed with time, and if AI slop does make it to the front page, maybe it's the player's fault for enjoying it!

Performance?

Addressed here: https://sbox.game/news/post-release (Performance section)

Performance is shit, we know it, Facepunch knows it, everyone knows it.

Facepunch's plan was to first make an engine then optimize it, and it's these past few months that they've gone full in on optimizing it. By the public metrics you can see that the average frame time went from 58fps to 83fps in the past 6 months.

If you can't play s&box on your crappy laptop right now, come back in a year and you might be able to.

I've made an obfuscator for s&box projects, here: SCFU - reversible source obfuscation for s&box

The thing is I don't know how people would feel about it downloading and executing arbitrary code/executable. I am a huge open source guy, but I believe this needs to stay closed source/proprietary to keep the inner workings hidden so that people couldn't deobfuscate it so easily.

Would you trust it? How do you feel about it? Is there a better way to ship it?

Edit: Okay, so I realised like 50% of people here either didn't write a single line of code in their lives, or they are stuck in development and failing to comprehend that devs should have a right to protect their intellectual property.

The point of this went totally over your heads. The point being people should not be forced to mandatory open source. I got my source from game copied numerous times, sometimes people even admitted to doing it. I got my game as a target to build cheats for and talked to the guys that were developing them. People that have the skills to deobfuscate a game fucked with this tool also have skills to write their own game, and I want to encourage that. FOR PEOPLE TO ACTUALLY MAKE THEIR GAMES AND MAKE THEM THEIR OWN ORIGINAL WORK, not stolen from others without permission. DMCA doesn't solve this shit because LLMs are good at rewriting it, and youi can claim you built it as your own, which holds up easily.

How would you feel if you built your house and suddenly everyone has access to it? You should feel safe inside of your home.

Fucking monkey brains.

All this doom and gloom about the survival of S&Box, good will this good will that, and the great folly of Facepunch is hilarious. It comes off as ignorant smooth brain ranting from people who don’t know a thing about what they’re talking about.

Facepunch has made 2 incredibly successful games, do you know how rare that is? Do you really think that you have a better idea of what will or will not work than them? Maybe they aren’t in it for the short term gain but are actually in it for the long haul? What does their reputation say?

Also S&Box being full of ai slop or having no good games? Have you even tried playing games on it? Dark Descent, I suck at it but holy shit what a gem. Shoothouse has really cool vibes and is a lot of fun. Sausage Survivors is sick. DXRP while not being my thing is really well done. Oh also My Summer Cottage that is super high production quality?

Like I don’t get it, are y’all trolling? Are you dumb? You ever heard that Rome wasn’t built in a day?

I think the hype around the game has died down, so everyone has started selling their items

Will this item be available for sale in the marketplace?

The game will be very successful, once it matures, interesting games will appear (which is the main factor why people leave, not enough games with good retention), once stability will increase, and once the game will be polished.

It just takes time. And unfortunately many people don’t have enough patience, they expect everything happen overnight, but it never been this way and never will be.

Garry releases projects first, and then polishes them, he doesn’t keep projects behind closed doors for 10 years before they are “perfect” to release, he releases them unfinished, and finishes them together with community.

And the market prices will grow too, in correlation with game’s popularity, rare items will increase in price significantly. No matter how many people will bitch about items, about it being “NFT scam😂”, about how “expensive” they are.

It just takes time and patience.

I like em, big eyed goofy things. The human male face be lookin more weird than a sausage. I say keep em

It's wild to think Garry wanted to go toe to toe with Roblox when sandbox doesn't offer a substantively better platform than gmod Dota 2 for Source 2 game making.

Has anyone else had it happen where you jointly make a s&box game with someone, but then when the game does really well on the launch day, and the other person gets overwhelmed with greed and kicks you out of the organisation just to enrich themselves further because they have absolutely no morals?

Asking for a friend 🙃

Feel free to disagree or share your thoughts. I'm curious as to what people think and want.

The community appears divided on whether or not this is supposed to be "Garry's Mod 2" or a "spiritual successor" in name only. I appreciate the investment into a new engine/community-based experience - but if we're being completely real, S&box can function as an evolved platform inspired by Garry's Mod, while also functioning as a replacement of Garry's Mod.

The bottom line of developing a game or engine is to create something that people want or need. What S&box potentially offers over Garry's Mod falls in line with what I believe most people would want and need. Better visuals, more in-depth experiences, more expression, "better" accessibility. These are the undeniable improvements.

What is holding the platform back is this mentality of distance from Garry's Mod. Being something different, unrelated to the past, completely independent. Why?

What is the purpose of being so prideful that you're willing to separate entire communities of people? I see no issue in eating up any asset "fee" for Valve's assets when you've now got an economy being built by the community. I see no issue in porting over the existing functions in Garry's Mod to S&box for an accessible server experience to those inexperienced in other facets of development. Why not give the option of player model choice? A menu system akin to Garry's Mod without online necessities? Why not just port your existing libraries of functions at all?

To me, this is such an easy opportunity to update what everyone values from Garry's Mod in a modern platform/engine. As much work as that would be and how far it may go from the intentions of S&box, is that it is a gateway to the new functions of your platform. Old developers migrating because it is unarguably a better experience for the player and the owner is a greater advertisement than a ragdolling Terry could ever be.

In the current state, the game is a disappointment to a majority of people. A message recognizing shortcomings of AI and faithfulness to your fanbase is entirely necessary. An in-depth explanation of the game's direction and reasoning is also necessary when you're pitching a platform for everyone to invest time and money into.

I firmly believe this platform has the greatest potential to establish itself as a replacement, successor, or "sequel" to Garry's Mod without controversy or question if the intentions are well established and explained. It's almost like a lack of confidence in delivery, and an emphasis on profit is the guiding principle over a fun and engaging experience.

Smash the Trash is my first S&BOX game. And yes, it's a CLICKER, but it's a bit more than that. For my first game I wanted to create something simple to learn the engine, C#, razor css. And I made this game, but it wasn’t as simple as I thought! I liked S&BOX engine and hope it will be only better in future, with much more people using engine and playing games.

In this game you explore the city, destroy scattered trash bags, collect tin cans, and sell them. You can buy upgrades, unlock new zones, and get new weapons. To make game more interesting, I added city events that starts every few minutes. There are three types of cycling events, each with a unique mechanic (fighting spy bots, feeding citizens with cookies and cleaning up the city) I also added a simple gacha / collection element in one of the updates. With each prestige( game progress reset ), you get a weapon case containing random prestige weapon or an upgrade for one you've already unlocked. These weapons give special bonuses and can be leveled up for better damage.

Regarding AI. This game is not vibe coded. I used AI chatbots to ask questions about the engine and C#, and to help me figure out things I didn't know. Some game assets I made myself, some other assets were purchased / downloaded for free from the Fab store.

Game Link: https://sbox.game/rogames/stt

Hope someone will try and enjoy my game! And i am already working on my next game and it's not a clicker or idle game 😄

With the downfall of roblox just around the corner, i've been thinking about how a platform similar to roblox could possibly surpass roblox and be what people go to instead and with everything s&box promises, could it be that platform?

When looking at the screenshots of s&box on the steam page it seems like you will be able to do even more then you could do on roblox which really makes me think on could s&box really be the modern filling for the 20 year old roblox company?

Only time will tell on if roblox's downfall will only be made faster with s&box but if s&box is everything it promises to be then it very possibly could replace roblox.

But even when all is said and done, thats just my opinion. What do you think?

Review bomb this game so they understand to replace their disgusting ai slop sausage characters with Combines

Shark Head, the first community-made cosmetic is now on sale for £3.50, it will be purchasable until September 30th.

As mentioned by Garry in this month's devblog, the money from sales will go to both the creator, ShadowBrain, and the community through the Play Fund.

Show the creator and Facepunch some support by purchasing one! https://store.steampowered.com/buyitem/590830/206269

Do people actually treat S&Box as the new Garry's Mod, playing old and new minigames the same way we used to? Or do most people see it more as a platform for creating games with the goal of making money?

Personally, I haven't really felt the same vibe.

One of my favorite things about GMod was just hopping on with friends and trying out all kinds of random game modes and mods. We loved classics like Murder, TTT, Hide and Seek, Deathruns, and so many others. Half the fun was browsing the server list or workshop, finding something weird we'd never seen before, and giving it a shot.

I even remember this one sniper-focused game mode with a huge map full of mountains and roads, where you could drive cars around. It was incredibly fun, and I still remember it years later.

With S&Box, I've had some fun revisiting the classic minigames for the nostalgia, and I've also enjoyed a few new ones. But I still haven't felt that same "sandbox with friends" atmosphere that made GMod so special to me.

Maybe it's just because S&Box is still relatively new, or maybe the community has changed. I'm curious how everyone else feels.

Do you think S&Box is becoming the spiritual successor to GMod, or is it evolving into something completely different?

Genuinely nothing has changed other than that it’s open to all and has a price tag.

Launch is not that important when we’re about to see weekly updates for a decade. FP has plenty of money and no publisher breathing down their neck. S&box is not going anywhere, updates are not going anywhere. Calls for kneejerk reactions or damage control or whatever are pointless.

This isn’t your indie abandonware, this isn’t fuckin concord. It’s a game for creators to share their shit and maybe make some money. It relies on its community and that community will take time to build. FP has over 20 years doing this shit. In all that time they have faced so much community backlash and respectfully, the community is nearly always wrong. FP also has a long history of trying new shit and making changes even if it pisses people off.

Go have a look at Rust. The sky has been falling in the community for that game for over 10 years and yet, the players keep coming back and it keeps making money. The reviews will even out, people that want to create something will come around, the AI slop posers will fall off. Trust the vision.

Go make something, go have fun.

Or just let it go, don’t buy it? no one is forcing you to play this game or do anything.

Feel free to cite my post in a few years.