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What's people's problem with instances.

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  • xAPOCxxAPOCx Member UncommonPosts: 869
    Originally posted by mos0811
    Originally posted by arieste
    Originally posted by ArzhAngel

    Simple:

    Any form for Instances are for singleplayer game, and have nothing to do in a mmorpg.

    The point of instances is to control the population of an area so that the area provides the optimal experience to that population.  You would never need one in a single-player game as the population of a single-player game is always 1.  Instances- pretty much by definition - are a tool for multiplayer games with large populations (i.e. MMOs).  

    Instances are a crutch so devs don't have to do proper network code, or put proper hardware resources towards the problem.  The whole point of an mmoRPG is to get thousands of players together in the same place; not to code it so that thousands of players can be in smalls groups in hundreds of different instances.

    This is also goes hand in hand with how many polygons are drawn and why mmoRPGs should NOT be eye candy.  Single player games are great for new graphics, but mmoRPGs need to keep their draw count low on purpose to allow for hundreds-thousands of people to be in the same area at the same time.

    Just because a tool was created doesn't mean it should be used.

    +1 to this

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  • Originally posted by Karble
    Originally posted by Karble

    Instances are ok for certain reasons.

    A good reason would be if a game dungeon was so big that you and your group/raid could not hope to clear it in a session of 4 to 6 hours. This would make instancing a good thing, since the progress you have made in the instance can be saved similar to if you were playing a pen and paper D&D campaign.

    Other that that I don't really like the idea of instances in general.

    Also in the same dungeon (if it's that big), you could have 6 or 10 parties doing various parts of the dungeon content and, both competing with and assisting each other with mobs.

    Also I disagree with you about which was the best expansion.

    The game itself and the first 5 expansions were the best in my opinion.

    There were fantastic dungeons that were huge and not instanced mostly.

    The open world had several areas that were a sort of dungeon themselves in the way the factions, mob placements etc worked.

    There were class specific armors that, when you clicked, would cast a free spell from your class. These were usually deep in Karnor's Castle which could be tackled with a group, but you could easily get overwhelmed from a pull...so having multiple groups around to take extra mobs was nice. 

    Scars of Velious continued the excellent design and expanded with a One Time killable dragon in Sleepers Tomb. There were huge giants in Kael Drakkal to face off against, Temple of Veeshan was crazy fun. Tower of Frozen Shadows. The first access to the planes of Gods......plane of Growth and plane of Mischief. Velkitor's Labrynth......so much good content.

    The Shadows of Luclin was an amazing masterpiece as well. There were many zones that required faction and several steps to be able to get to the final boss and slay them. Once done this would give you a piece of the over all key needed to get to another place which ended up in a crazy zone called Vex Thal. This was the point in the game they introduced The Bazaar and The Nexus. These allowed for players to set their char up as a vendor in the game and leave pc on all day so others could come to their char and look through bags and purchase items for whatever value you had decided was fair.

    The Planes of Power....

    This took tiered content and raiding very seriously. Once again following the "key" formula, they had something called flagging. To get a character into any of the higher tier zones, a player had to talk with npcs and kill bosses in the previous tier planes. It was full raiding and good fun. They introduced some things in this expansion that were also questionable like the POK with portals to everywhere. This broke part of the massiveness of the previous content and hurt part of the value of a few classes in the game. But the concept of the high end God content was impressive.

    The Legacy of Ykesha

    This added very unique collection of areas to the game. The fights were fun and the areas gave players from 30 to 60 something fun to do. It was also quite dangerous there as well.

    Almost all of what I have listed here is what I would call.....the best of EQ

    After this, the other expansions added very little in terms of game play. Sure they extended the quest, added more levels, more unlocks, more AA, instancing etc...

    But I would say that instancing as a whole felt very un-mmo to me. It's almost like choosing to just be alone in a setting where you are surrounded by others who are alone as well. Very ghost town feeling there. What's the point of playing a game with thousands of players if you only want to play by yourself or with a few other people. There are multi-player games that have this built into them as a foundation.

    For myself and most people I know....a zone or a non-zoned world is best. Not the instanced zone where you are all alone.

    Sorry about the text wall. didn't realize until after I hit send....lol.

    Gave it a full read and I cannot agree more.

  • xAPOCxxAPOCx Member UncommonPosts: 869
    Originally posted by arieste
    Originally posted by Xthos

     

    It's opinion, some like, some don't....

     

    Some like, some don't.  Some have no clue what they're talking about or what instancing is.  

     

    People say that "instancing makes me feel alone, because it separates me from others and makes me feel like i'm playing a single player game".  

     

    Oh ok.  Let me give you an example.  Vanguard - very famously - had an non-instanced "open-world".   To send me to specific quest NPCs or quest fights - in the absence of instances - Vanguard would teleport my character to the top of a faraway mountain where no other players could reach via regular travel.  What Vanguard did was basically separate me from others and make me feel like i was playing a single player game.   OMG!  I have open-world games because they separate me from others and make me feel like playing a single-player game!

     

    Uhm.  No.  Open world had nothing to do with that design.  The developers decided that this particular quest experience should separate me from others.  If i didn't like that experience, I didn't like it.  I am not going to blame open-world technology that enabled it for the way that the developers chose to implement something.

     

    Instancing can enable hundreds of people to play together and share meaningful experiences.  It can also enable individual experiences.  Small group experiences.  Any amount of people experiences. Chances are, some of those experience you will enjoy and some you won't.    Don't blame the technology, because chances are, virtually every experience you've ever had in an MMO can also happen in an instance (hey, just make a 2nd copy of EVE and suddenly you have 2 instances of EVE and everything that happens in one of them is "instanced") 

    False. I could reach any peak in the game with my flying mount. Also even if i didn't have a flying mount and i had that same quest, it would port me to the same location you were at and guess who would be standing there? YOU WOULD BE STANDING THERE! Why were you standing there? BECAUSE YOU WERE STILL IN THE SAME WORLD AS ME!

     

    You weren't ported to some instance. You were teleported to someplace within the same world. Where others could interact with the same things you could. I feel like im taking crazy pills. 

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  • PrenhoPrenho Member Posts: 298
    It's funny to see some people who want this game to be another wow clone, as if there were few themeparks on the market.
  • HeretiqueHeretique Member RarePosts: 1,534

    Instances have just been an answer to a lot of band-aid fixes when it comes to how to handle the population and the engine. Seeing what other games have done, I am pretty sure EQNext could put the "Massive" back in Massively Multiplayer Online. All depends on what they do to cull the population to what systems and the engine can handle.

  • xAPOCxxAPOCx Member UncommonPosts: 869
    Originally posted by tkreep
    Originally posted by xAPOCx
     
    Originally posted by arieste
    Originally posted by xAPOCx

    Because when your in your instanced "house" it removes you from the game world completely thus reducing the population. Remember its not just you in your "house". Its hundreds maybe thousands of people in there "house" ir instance. Reducing town, city and open world populations. Making the world feel empty and unpopulated. 

    When i go into my RL house, it reduces the street population and makes the streets feel empty.  But it doesn't reduce the world's population.  The same with an in-game house.  Just because i'm in my house, doesn't make it one less people in the world.  People can still call me (chat with me), visit me in my house or ask me to come outside and play.   Just because I'm in my house doesn't mean i'm gone from the world.  And my neighbours can see my light on in their friends list and be comforted by the fact that I'm there.  

     

    Not really sure where this analogy was going...

    "House in this sense in any instance. using the word house was just to describe an instance. ( see the conversation i was having with the other poster) So yes when you and 1000 other people are in your house or "instance" as it were, you are reducing the world pop because you are no longer in the same world. You have been removed and placed into another world.... the instance. 

     

    That was where the analogy was going... 

    Not really because someone from outside can still break in uninvited and loot your stuff so its not truly a private instance

    what? I dont understand what your trying to say. How can someone break in to someones private instance?

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  • GholosGholos Member Posts: 209
    Originally posted by Waterlily

    I really don't get this hate towards instances. MMORPG.com now has an article "What we don't want in EQnext: Instances".

    I don't know who this "we" is. People who never played EQ?

    The best expansions in Everquest were the heavily instanced ones.

    LDON-OOW (proving grounds trials+pizza instances)-DoN-DoD (amazing expansion, also the best looking one imo)

    Let alone all the raid instances, which were actually a huge improvement over the mob ganking and drama caused on the server.

    GoD group instances, one of the most fun and rewarding content you could find. Ask anyone what the most fun group content was and many will say LDON, DoD, MPG trials and the freeport Badge Arena battle. All instanced.

    I have no idea why some people don't want instances. If done right, they are great.

    I have nothing against istances, if challenging. If the devs will introduce in EQN an OW FFA PvP (i hope not) i will prefer istances for normal dungeons and raids.

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    "Brute force not work? It because you not use enought of it"
    -Karg, Ogryn Bone'ead.

  • ariestearieste Member UncommonPosts: 3,309
    For Waterlily - you can have the same scripts in the open world as you do instances. EQ2 does this. The AEs are just raid-wide and impact everyone that is engaged to the encounter. So all the same things can happen as in instance. The difference is that it's more laggy and other people can grief you jumping around through the fight to distract you and stuff. But it can be done.

    "I’d rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."

    - Raph Koster

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  • frizzlepicklefrizzlepickle Member Posts: 72
    Originally posted by Manakar
    You are confusing zones with instances as far as your comment about EQ having instances.. Instances are more private where zones anyone can come into it..

    Zones suck IMO. Instances are great. They just need to be used modestly and only when necessary not for the sake of it. Otherwise it feels like I'm playing a CoD lobby game with different types of maps but not a living and full "world". Without instances everything becomes a zerg cluster fuck with no real strategy, half the fun is working together with your guild to overcome a challenge. Not thousands of players all half-heartedly spamming the 1 button and then getting a reward for it. Though that is also fun. Hence why I say do both.

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  • KarbleKarble Member UncommonPosts: 750
    Originally posted by Waterlily
    Originally posted by Stiler
    Originally posted by Waterlily

    I seriously don't understand how you guys expect there to be any form of decent raiding without instances. You can not do certain mechanics in an open world without doing it in a closed off dungeon.

    You can't allow scripts to run wild in the open world and randomly resetting them. You can't reset a script in an open world without knowing if anyone is there or not.

    Sure you can, easily have a way to tell if there's a player within "x" distance of mob (the server is going to know where a player is) and if there's no player then script reset.

     

    Tell me how you would do a zonewide AE in an open world like in Dreadspire?

    There's certain things that just aren't possible in the open world.

    There is logic applied to the game design and server clusters.

    If a player casts a rain spell it can just happen in the server cluster around them basically within the logical area to give a perception to them and players within a few shouts that rain had just magically happened.

    Also there is something starting to be used called massive server or something. Basically it uses a technology so that you see friends and guild members first, then enemy players next...then other players as there is room for you to see them up to the point where the server and your pc capacity are reached with a smooth frame rate.

  • whisperwyndwhisperwynd Member UncommonPosts: 1,668
     What's the OP's problem with other people's problem? You a shrink trying to pine for some work? You like them, great. Others don't, tough titty. Get used to life..it'll go easier on ya.
  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by Kiyoris
    Everyone will have a different opinion now. Instances was needed in Everquest, because of the mentioned raid issues, and group instances provided everyone with great dungeons.

    They were needed in EQ due to bad game design. They are not needed in well designed games.

     

     

  • ManakarManakar Member UncommonPosts: 110
    Originally posted by Prenho
    It's funny to see some people who want this game to be another wow clone, as if there were few themeparks on the market.

    Exactly.. Why does every mmorpg have to be a WoW themepark mmo clone. So many mmorpgs are like that now. I am sick of them! So many of them cater to the solo, casual, instant gratification, anti-social crowd.. Why can't one have the old school formula? If I loved themepark MMOs then I would have a ton to play right now.. Go play them and stop trying to turn EQN into one of them..

  • ValkaernValkaern Member UncommonPosts: 497

    I've  had more memorable (good and bad) and impactful experiences (meeting people - making friends and enemies) in open dungeons than I ever did in any private instance.

    I personally prefer an MMO that can evoke a broad spectrum of experiences rather than one that removes all potential for occasional negative experiences at the cost of player interaction. When they too strictly limit potential for antisocial encounters (trains, camp/kill stealing), they limit potential for positive interactions as well (heroically helping with a CR, teaming up for a named/event, replacing group members that need to leave).

    I'm not against an instance for something like a personal story/quest step, though I wouldn't bat an eyelid if they disappeared forever. No developer pre-canned story ever compared to the quality catalog of tales I've accrued through just playing with friends or interacting with other players in an open world. 

    I have a history of having more memorable experiences in a shared space.

  • AdrazahnAdrazahn Member Posts: 26

    I wonder how many people arguing for non-instanced raids either A) never played such a game or B) thrive on hatred, vitriol, and drama. Original EQ had the latter in spades thanks to all the fighting over raid mobs.

    Now non-instanced dungeons (outside of boss mobs) might work. I'd love to see some combination of both. No reason you couldn't have instanced and non-instanced versions of the same dungeon.

  • AntariousAntarious Member UncommonPosts: 2,834

    In Ultima Online "non instanced" dungeons were great because... it was a good place to find people to attack or get attacked by.

     

    In the adventure sense.. non instanced dungeons suck (in my opinion).   Simply because I think a dungeon should be a place of danger... not piles of dead mobs (no living) mobs and 100+ people waiting for something to spawn.

  • xAPOCxxAPOCx Member UncommonPosts: 869
    Originally posted by Torvaldr
    Originally posted by Distopia

    Everything old is good everything new is bad, that's the vibe I get when reading through these threads.

    Instancing (in dungeons) is all about tailoring a piece of content toward a specific experience (immersion). As well as ensuring everyone gets a fair shot at a piece of content.

    Open dungeons are controlled by the biggest guilds, at least those of importance to gear. By doing so they control the market on rare items, they grow richer because of it. It's not hard to figure out why they'd want non-instanced dungeons.

    Now we're getting down to reality and nobody likes that.  The reality is contested content leaves the majority frustrated with a powerful minority in control of the most valuable resources.

    I'm not going to pay for someone else to have a great gaming experience at my expense.  Somehow, I doubt I'm alone in this thinking.

    Im sure your not alone but i will say this. Your gaming experience is what you make it. If the design of the game allows those top guild to control resources then find a way to trade with them and co-exist. Join a trading alliance with a powerful guild and sell resources for profits. Hell try and join the guild if you want. But standing on the outside bitching about those that have isn't going make for good gaming experience. And thats not the games fault. its yours. 

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  • MaelkorMaelkor Member UncommonPosts: 459

    It simple - instances break up the player base into what amounts to a single player or simple online gaming experience versus a massively multiplayer experience. I have not played a single game in the last 5 years or so in which I had the feeling of massively muliplayer. Eve might be the one exception.

     

    Quest leveling hubs and instances are the two mechanics which have destroyed the massive in massively multiplayer online. Most online games today are played as a single player game with some minor social interaction. While original EQ had its share of problems the one thing that made that game shine was the social interaction. They absolutely nailed that aspect of gaming which is what made EQ a huge success for its time. The solution of instances and quest leveling hubs did not solve the problems that were ascociated with EQ they simply created new problems which have not yet been addressed or solved. Its the one reason I rarely play an MMO anymore.

  • PrenhoPrenho Member Posts: 298
    Originally posted by Manakar
    Originally posted by Prenho
    It's funny to see some people who want this game to be another wow clone, as if there were few themeparks on the market.

    Exactly.. Why does every mmorpg have to be a WoW themepark mmo clone. So many mmorpgs are like that now. I am sick of them! So many of them cater to the solo, casual, instant gratification, anti-social crowd.. Why can't one have the old school formula? If I loved themepark MMOs then I would have a ton to play right now.. Go play them and stop trying to turn EQN into one of them..

    I also don't understand the whining of those kids. If they want WoW, go back to WoW, if they want a clone, there are thousands of them. if they want a new fresh WoW clone, just wait for Wildstar or whatever.

     

    For them, every new game must be a wow with another skin. There can't be A SINGLE MMO with old school mechanics anymore that they cry as if all wow clones had been erased from the earth.

  • majimaji Member UncommonPosts: 2,091
    Instances rip apart the game world. Not only do they kill immersion, by shoving loading screens into your face, pulling you out of the game. They also seperate the people playing the game from each other. That kills the concept of playing in some sort of virtual world, and additionally reduce the interaction possibilities between players.

    Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)

    Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)

  • evilastroevilastro Member Posts: 4,270

    Because it creates a point where you are no longer in a virtual world, and instead in your own little platform game.

    Instances are fine for end game grinders like EQ1/EQ2, but they are aiming for something different with EQN. There are plenty of games with instances around, but only a handful with none. Dispite the chunk lines, Vanguard handled open world raids very well. There is no reason EQN couldnt follow from that example.

    Also if the game is OWPvP, then open world contested mobs create the best kind of action.

  • grifjgrifj Member Posts: 110
    Originally posted by Jean-Luc_Picard

    It's called either "nostalgia" or "masochism". Some people seem to think camping a spawn for 12+ hours just to see a late coming guild "ninja" it and you ending with nothing at all is good mechanics.

    Instancing doesn't have to be as extensive as in WoW and clones. It can be done better, like with dungeons being open and only boss rooms being instanced / phased.

    Those are good mechanics.  They result in something called community.  Bad actors get recognized and become villains.  Good actors make friends.

    In a sandbox world, being somebody that is respected will be even more important than it was in EQ1 (where it was nearly impossible to get a group if you were terribad, a ninja looter, or another bad actor). 

  • JIUBHUNNY420JIUBHUNNY420 Member Posts: 131

    Im 100% for Instancing, its OVER-INSTANCING thats the real problem. 

     

    I think WoW's original vanilla way of handling instances was perfect.

    Instances for Dungeons and Raid content, and thats it. 

    No instanced PVP - World PVP is much more meaningful and engaging. 

    No instant group finder/DungeonFinder - Whch WoW later added to further suck the life and soul out of the game. 

     

    But now people Over-instance and put you behind a que for everything and channels, and cross-server play. These are all mechanics that Core Original MMO's had, I hate to say an overused phrase but if it aint broke dont fix it. 

    These things and B2P P2P are not the problems, its the lack of originality thats truely hindering this genre.

    J-Hun Lookin to Creep Yall!

  • evilastroevilastro Member Posts: 4,270
    Originally posted by Adrazahn

    I wonder how many people arguing for non-instanced raids either A) never played such a game or B) thrive on hatred, vitriol, and drama. Original EQ had the latter in spades thanks to all the fighting over raid mobs.

    Now non-instanced dungeons (outside of boss mobs) might work. I'd love to see some combination of both. No reason you couldn't have instanced and non-instanced versions of the same dungeon.

    I loved contested raids in EQ, and there was rarely any hatred or vitriol between raiding guilds as they swapped pulls. If it was a tough mob we would congratulate the other guild or vice versa.

    Also Vanguard does open world raiding quite well. Although the low population made that a bit easier.

  • grifjgrifj Member Posts: 110
    Originally posted by Resken

    Instances are absolutely awful. Some people have already explained really well as to why. To sum it all up though is that it breaks the immersion of the game. I play MMO games because I want to feel lost in a virtual fantasy -world-. Instances make me feel like I'm playing a single player -game-.

     

    The only people that seem to enjoy instances are people that want instant gratification. While I can understand why people want that, it's not why I play MMO games.

    ^^This

    It's all about the instant gratification mentality vs. world immersiveness mentality.  Which you prefer will dictate whether you like instances.

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