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Aventurine "gets it". I wish all MMO devs did.

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  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by asmkm22
    Originally posted by DavisFlight
     

    The difficult bit is designing it so that players NEVER HAVE TO FIGHT FOR CONTENT, WITHOUT USING INSTANCES.

    There aren't exactly many ways to do it here.  You can use instances, let everyone zerg the content a-la GW2, or you can try and make the game world so incredibly huge that player density will never be a problem (and make sure that all zones are equal enough so that players aren't all just camping the same mobs in the same zone).

    But all three of those solutions are bad... I don't think you understand MMOs...

    It's one thing for dev like Aventurine to talk the talk, but they've never actually had to deal with game worlds that were popular enough to make instancing an issue. 

    Yup, suspicions confirmed. So I guess 10k peolpe logged in at once on the same server isn't enough to have to worry about instancing?

    Jeesh...

  • AnnwynAnnwyn Member UncommonPosts: 2,854
    Originally posted by DavisFlight
    Originally posted by asmkm22
    Originally posted by DavisFlight
     

    The difficult bit is designing it so that players NEVER HAVE TO FIGHT FOR CONTENT, WITHOUT USING INSTANCES.

    There aren't exactly many ways to do it here.  You can use instances, let everyone zerg the content a-la GW2, or you can try and make the game world so incredibly huge that player density will never be a problem (and make sure that all zones are equal enough so that players aren't all just camping the same mobs in the same zone).

    But all three of those solutions are bad... I don't think you understand MMOs...

    It's one thing for dev like Aventurine to talk the talk, but they've never actually had to deal with game worlds that were popular enough to make instancing an issue. 

    Yup, suspicions confirmed. So I guess 10k peolpe logged in at once on the same server isn't enough to have to worry about instancing?

    Jeesh...

    There's a big difference between 10k players in a large world, and 10k players in a small world.

    It seems people are quick to forget that when the game first launched, we actually had queues to spawn at the stone. We were fighting over each others just to kill and loot those little goblins. It was chaotic, fun to some extent, but chaotic. At least fun until some clown decides to jump in front of you to have you hit him (exploiting alignment) and then every other greedy players jumps to kill you for the loot without penality, but I digress. 

    Instancing is a wonderful design choice for PvE games. One that allows all players access to content they would've had to otherwise wait to access. This is not because of a bad design, but because PvE games generally have to deal with a much higher population and higher population density in certain areas. Areas are also built to hold a certain amount of population to better balance server load without affecting overall performance.

    Of course for games like DarkFall which are PvP-oriented games, it makes a lot less sense to instance the game because it would reduce the amount of PvP encounter. On the other hand, large scale battles (and by large scale battle I don't mean the 20v21 "zerg" the community has grown used to, but  the 100v100+ we had at launch) can have a pretty heavy strain on the server. 

    There are pros and cons to everything, and instancing is merely a design choice part of the larger design of an MMORPG. There is no "single best solution and everything else is a bad solution."

     

  • SysFailSysFail Member Posts: 375

    I hope future titles shirk the instancing trend that has been been the bane of MMO's. It's annoying, extremely annoying to play a game where you're sent to your own little world, thus disconnected from all the other inhabitants of that world except your own little party.

     

    AV have made many mistakes, but they have always stood by their guns in making a real challenging player experience and that can only come from an open world.

    UW may be a bit less brutal than DF1 in some area's, but it should still be a hair raising experience that forces a player to think to overcome, something i've not experienced in a game since Ultima and really the only reason i've put up with AV's shortcomings in the past, most likely the future too, is because I love their idea of open world, skill based gameplay.

     

    So long live crazy devs like AV, without these nutters the mmo genre would be a big blob of carebear pink.

  • ThaneThane Member EpicPosts: 3,534
    Originally posted by DavisFlight

    Today Tasos echoed something I have been saying for years. Something that always brings out the screaming themepark fans who just cannot see how games function without them.

    Instances are there to help the developers, not the players.

     

    Tasos says, roughly,

    "On instances let me just say, we never had them, we don't have them, and we might never have them. They don't agree with our philosphy for a massively multiplayer game. ... We want player interaction to be at the major possible level and we don't want to limit it by instancing. Instancing is really not in our DNA...We don't want to take away from that. We don't like the instances, and if we ever do go to any form of instancing, it will be to improve our user experience, and not because they are more convenient to us. Because usually instance are used for technical reasons, for convenience of the developer."

     

    I've always aid that instances are band aids for poor game design. Developers that rely on instancing do so because they can't figure out how to make a balanced MMO without it.

    If you took instances out of WoW it would fall apart. EQ suffered without instances (in terms of camping rare spawns, not general leveling. General leveling flourished without instancing).

    However, DAoC functioned perfectly without instances. I never waited in line for a mob spawn. Nobody ever stole my kills (which I always found to be a dumb objection anyway, because if someone were to go about stealing your kills, they could do it in the public zones just as easily)

     

    If a dev adds instancing, it's because its sooo much easier to half ass a game and plop instances in, than think about an MMO as en entire ecosystem. Most MMOs are becoming a collection of side games all stapled together, seperated by instances. They are no longer big cohesive units.

     

    I'm glad to see that Aventurine, one of the only companies that sees instances for what they are, a crutch, is also one of the ONLY MMO companies to GROW after launch in the last 8 years,

     

    so, i guess darkfall has no dungeons then? ^^

     

    uh and btw, catacombs has instances. nice refering of daoc. completely wrong tho, sorry ^^

     

    ps: you actually think blizz didnt grow since they released wow? now that's cute.

    "I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"

  • iamrtaiamrta Member UncommonPosts: 165
    Originally posted by Schockey
    That is goodstuff! My friend and I left one of the last big titles because the instancing was so inconvenient and the load screens took away so much from immersion.

    Woa! This is E X A C T L Y how I feel and why I also just walked away from a game last month. I just have zero desire to wait outside a door for help with a world/level that has absolutely nothing to do with my current adventure.

  • ShakyMoShakyMo Member CommonPosts: 7,207
    Thane
    Daoc did function perfectly well without instances

    Catacombs came later and made the game worse.
  • evilastroevilastro Member Posts: 4,270
    Originally posted by Fearum
    Im gonna give it a shot, df 1 was a turd, I hope they polished up enough this time. Yeah its more like mortal combat/streetfighter than a rpg.

    If you thought DF was a turd, then DF:UW is just a turd with glitter on it.

    The core gameplay hasn't changed.

  • ThaneThane Member EpicPosts: 3,534
    Originally posted by ShakyMo
    Thane
    Daoc did function perfectly well without instances

    Catacombs came later and made the game worse.

    i know, i played daoc.

    still catacombs had instances, and catacombs was a part of daoc. 

     

    just stating facts here.

     

    uh and btw, it worked because of a mature community. nowadays this is just a historical legend.

     

    in daoc people knew, when i was fighting a mob spawn, this was my spawn. they wouldn't just jump into it and steel the mobs.

    if people did so, it could actually be reported (and got through).

     

    nowadays. mobsteeling is concidered "cool".

     

    seriously, you wanna throw those players in a non instanced world? gl with that

    "I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"

  • botrytisbotrytis Member RarePosts: 3,363

    People are also missing the idea, that an instance dungeon, is all for YOUR group. Not for others but for your group. All the drops, all the mobs, all the bosses. That is why in GW2, they instanced the dungeons. Wouldn't you hate going into an open dungeon hoping to get a drop from a particular boss and the boss is dead already and the spawn rate is slow - so your group has to camp there and wait.

     


  • SysFailSysFail Member Posts: 375
    Originally posted by Thane
    Originally posted by ShakyMo
    Thane
    Daoc did function perfectly well without instances

    Catacombs came later and made the game worse.

    i know, i played daoc.

    still catacombs had instances, and catacombs was a part of daoc. 

     

    just stating facts here.

     

    uh and btw, it worked because of a mature community. nowadays this is just a historical legend.

     

    in daoc people knew, when i was fighting a mob spawn, this was my spawn. they wouldn't just jump into it and steel the mobs.

    if people did so, it could actually be reported (and got through).

     

    nowadays. mobsteeling is concidered "cool".

     

    seriously, you wanna throw those players in a non instanced world? gl with that

    You seem to think that mob stealing is a new phenomenon, but it has been going since MMO's were born, the only difference in the early games players could react by either giving up the spawn, or attacking the player muscling in and that's what DF delivers, which is what many of us enjoy.

    Having the ability to police in this way is a far better approach than telling the teacher someone stole your toy. I never played daoc and find it shocking that a gm would actually take someone serious if they reported such a thing, but then daoc had safe zones i believe where you couldn't deal with it yourself, which of course is why open pvp works in an open world.

  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by botrytis

    People are also missing the idea, that an instance dungeon, is all for YOUR group. Not for others but for your group. All the drops, all the mobs, all the bosses. That is why in GW2, they instanced the dungeons. Wouldn't you hate going into an open dungeon hoping to get a drop from a particular boss and the boss is dead already and the spawn rate is slow - so your group has to camp there and wait.

     

    No, because I never played a game where the devs were dumb enough to design a dungeon that way. Why put a boss with a low respawn? Why put a single boss at all?

    Instanced dungeons aren't like public dungeons in many ways.

    Besides, a lot of the fun of public dungeons was having other people around to help, or help you.

  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by Thane
    Originally posted by ShakyMo
    Thane
    Daoc did function perfectly well without instances

    Catacombs came later and made the game worse.

    i know, i played daoc.

    still catacombs had instances, and catacombs was a part of daoc. 

     

    just stating facts here.

     

    uh and btw, it worked because of a mature community. nowadays this is just a historical legend.

     

    in daoc people knew, when i was fighting a mob spawn, this was my spawn. they wouldn't just jump into it and steel the mobs.

    if people did so, it could actually be reported (and got through).

     

    nowadays. mobsteeling is concidered "cool".

     

    seriously, you wanna throw those players in a non instanced world? gl with that

    If killstealing is such an epidemic, then how come there is no killstealing OUTSIDE of dungeons, in the public world?

    Killstealing is the weakest argument for instancing. It only ever happened to me once in DAoC, and it happened in teh open world, not in a dungeon. I reported the guy and it never happened again.

  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by evilastro
    Originally posted by Fearum
    Im gonna give it a shot, df 1 was a turd, I hope they polished up enough this time. Yeah its more like mortal combat/streetfighter than a rpg.

    If you thought DF was a turd, then DF:UW is just a turd with glitter on it.

    The core gameplay hasn't changed.

    The core gameplay is what was redesigned...

  • phantomghostphantomghost Member UncommonPosts: 738
    Originally posted by DavisFlight
    Originally posted by botrytis

    People are also missing the idea, that an instance dungeon, is all for YOUR group. Not for others but for your group. All the drops, all the mobs, all the bosses. That is why in GW2, they instanced the dungeons. Wouldn't you hate going into an open dungeon hoping to get a drop from a particular boss and the boss is dead already and the spawn rate is slow - so your group has to camp there and wait.

     

    No, because I never played a game where the devs were dumb enough to design a dungeon that way. Why put a boss with a low respawn? Why put a single boss at all?

    Instanced dungeons aren't like public dungeons in many ways.

    Besides, a lot of the fun of public dungeons was having other people around to help, or help you.

    Yeah, I miss camps.

     

    I miss having to form groups to try to spawn bosses, in hopes of picking up an item.  The joy of playing a game to earn gear.  I love having to roll for gear, and possibly losing, makes the gear seem valuable to me.  Opposed to just receiving the same gear everybody has for killing ten mobs or farming a dungeon boss that spawns 100% of the time.


  • corpusccorpusc Member UncommonPosts: 1,341
    Originally posted by botrytis

    People are also missing the idea, that an instance dungeon, is all for YOUR group. Not for others but for your group. All the drops, all the mobs, all the bosses. That is why in GW2, they instanced the dungeons. Wouldn't you hate going into an open dungeon hoping to get a drop from a particular boss and the boss is dead already and the spawn rate is slow - so your group has to camp there and wait.

     

     

    on the contrary.  i LOVED running into other people serendipitously in the old school open world dungeons.

    i did not come to MMOs to play a single player or small scale RPG.  i almost never play those kind of games.  like pretty much never.

    i came to be part of a an alive, populated virtual world.

    ---------------------------

    Corpus Callosum    

    ---------------------------


  • ShakyMoShakyMo Member CommonPosts: 7,207
    Botryis
    Actually gw2 would have worked better with open dungeons rather than instances. The game is perfectly set up for it with no kill stealing, dynamic events, the way encounters scale to the number of players and the bronze / silver / gold medals. I was amazed they went with instances, they feel so tacked on when the rest of the pve is free roaming.
  • AnnwynAnnwyn Member UncommonPosts: 2,854
    Originally posted by ShakyMo
    Botryis
    Actually gw2 would have worked better with open dungeons rather than instances. The game is perfectly set up for it with no kill stealing, dynamic events, the way encounters scale to the number of players and the bronze / silver / gold medals. I was amazed they went with instances, they feel so tacked on when the rest of the pve is free roaming.

    But then boss loot would go to the first player/group landing a hit, which in the end will result in boss encounters being nothing more than a zergfest with groups hoping to be the first one to land a hit when the boss respawns.  This in turn would reduce the "epic" (if it ever was) nature of a boss encounter by removing all challenge (as are already GW2 DEs....zergfest) and forcing players to contiously camp a dungeon boss in hope to finally be the ones to get the hit.

    That's what Botryis was referring to. You're not playing when you're waiting in line.

  • ZushakonZushakon Member UncommonPosts: 148
    Originally posted by zimike
    Originally posted by LizardEgypt
    Anyone disagreeing with Tasos is lying to themselves. Whether you liked Darkfall or are interested in Darkfall UW, he is right. The games everyone is drooling over are no MMO diablo games. I see arguments that instancing is good on an MMO website. Go play GW2, SWTOR, or any of the other fake teleporting around the map RPGs for the shallow 2 weeks it'll last you and tell me again how much you support instancing. No player interaction, no risk/reward, just boring contrived repeatable gameplay.

     

    Yup, the games of today basically hand you everything. You could argue that having to fight over a resources makes the game more interesting.  Rewards have more meaning when you have to work for them. 

     

    And fighting is more exciting when you've got something to lose just as winning is more fullfilling when you've got something to gain. And those are the reasons DF UW will mostly likely be better than any of the other crap on the market.

    Darkfall Unholy Wars:
    Zushakon Odi

  • BadaboomBadaboom Member UncommonPosts: 2,380
    @ madness Everyone gets the loot/chest in gw2. The gw2 version is no wait in line.
  • AnnwynAnnwyn Member UncommonPosts: 2,854
    Originally posted by Badaboom
    @ madness Everyone gets the loot/chest in gw2. The gw2 version is no wait in line.

    Ah, I knew about the DEs but didn't know about the dungeons doing that as well.

    Still, it wouldn't fix the issue of bosses becoming a zergfest and thus making them far less challenging/epic. Otherwise they'd have to make some pretty brutal boss à la FFXI. At least there would be no waiting lines.

  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by MadnessRealm
    Originally posted by Badaboom
    @ madness Everyone gets the loot/chest in gw2. The gw2 version is no wait in line.

    Ah, I knew about the DEs but didn't know about the dungeons doing that as well.

    Still, it wouldn't fix the issue of bosses becoming a zergfest and thus making them far less challenging/epic. Otherwise they'd have to make some pretty brutal boss à la FFXI. At least there would be no waiting lines.

    Zerging wasn't an issue in DAoC for a few reasons.

    The AI was dynamic, in a sense. The dragon for example. If 200 people charged straight into him, he'd fly into the air and firebomb the raid, insta killing most of it. If only 30 people attacked he'd become overconfident and try to kill them with his tail and teeth. If they started using too much ranged damage, he'd use his breath.

    So, between the various triggers on various tactics, and the need to balance raid numbers vs loot distribution, it kept people from just zerging the mobs. What's more, since raids weren't tierred anyone could join any raid at any time. The loot was pretty, but not radically better than what crafters could make, so there weren't constantly lines for raid bosses.

  • FluteFlute Member UncommonPosts: 455
    Originally posted by DavisFlight

     

    I'm glad to see that Aventurine, one of the only companies that sees instances for what they are, a crutch, is also one of the ONLY MMO companies to GROW after launch in the last 8 years,

     

    Absolutely.  The concept of limited access instances only appeared because of failure of designers to develop better systems to counter the boss camping that occurred in some of the earlier MMOS in shared dungeons.

     

    Of all the games companies out there, the two independents who seem to be "getting it" and growing still are CCP and Aventurine, who have been smart enough to watch and learn off CCP.  I hope other independent games companies do the same, and give us games worth playing rather than yet another variant of WoW, which is of course itself a derivative of the games that came before it.

  • ZigZagsZigZags Member UncommonPosts: 381
    Originally posted by zymurgeist
    So no high resolution textures then?

    I think most old school MMOers who have been playing MMOs for 15 + years and recognize the best days were years ago would sacrifice Hi Res textures for better game mechanics any day.

     

    Dragnon - Guildmaster - Albion Central Bank in Albion Online

    www.albioncentralbank.enjin.com

  • someforumguysomeforumguy Member RarePosts: 4,088

    Aventurine has cute ideas, but I doubt their execution. I don't see any reason why this time it would go better. Everyone seems to have forgotten how they broke promise after promise.  What gameplay have you seen so far that takes away your doubts?

    As for instanced or not. Instancing is not just to fix the mob camping. It is also used to tell story in a way that would not always work in an open world.

    Then I saw some comments about players making their own story. Yeah, some players want that. But Darkfall, forget it. Main story in Darkfall will be 'Trollollollollol!' Because Aventurine doesn't understand why EVE became popular and Darkfall didn't.

  • IcewhiteIcewhite Member Posts: 6,403
    Originally posted by ZigZags
    Originally posted by zymurgeist
    So no high resolution textures then?

    I think most old school MMOers who have been playing MMOs for 15 + years and recognize the best days were years ago would sacrifice Hi Res textures for better game mechanics any day

    ....except the ones that just dropped 500 bones for a new GPU?  You're probably right, as a general rule.

    But that cutting edge hardware watch me pose is awfully addictive, guys have been doing that much longer than PC or Mac. Stereos in the 70s, Cadillacs in the 50s...

    Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.

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