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Why Instances bad?
SEANMCAD
Member EpicPosts: 16,775
Why? I do not undertand. I am not supporting them becuase I dont understand what the issue is at this time.
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Comments
Instances isn't bad. It's when a game overuse instance technology and fill the game up with nothing but instances. So you feel like you're playing a mini game by yourself, rather than with "massive" amounts of other players. Unfortunately most games do overuse instances.
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If you want to see the Uses of instancing in a bad way check out Star trek online. The instancing setup is so bad most of the time heck 99% of the time you feel like you are playing a single player game with a chat box attached.
Intances aren't necessarily bad (except in a full pvp game where some players feel that enemies can hide in there) but if they are overused they can separate the population so that players don't feel they are living in a world.
I think they are needed for better scripted and story related things.
It's getting the balance right that seems difficult.
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Instances aren't bad...
Its just a plain shame that old fashioned open dungeons like i remember from EQ, Vanguard, DAoC and others are not created anymore..
They would be a great addition to many current games.
Instances are a fine tool, i for excample really love how Lotro uses instances of normal zone for their story telling... It works great and gives a lot of immersion.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Dragon Age Origins uses a lot of instancing. It gets a little tedious when you have to wait for all those instances to load.
If instancing isn't used much, I don't have a problem with it.
Many on mmorpg are trying to resurrect some dead or dying game that didn' t have instancing. That's why they are so against it.
Instancing is okay, you can be the hero. Without instancing the dungeon becomes Wal*mart on Christmas Eve.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
Some people want Worlds, not Games. For these players, instancing is contrary to the primary reason they enjoy MMORPGs.
For you (the OP) and me (and most gamers really), we value gameplay above all. So we see all of the significant gameplay gains resulting from intsancing and consider it perfectly acceptable.
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hm would have thought you d see more diffrence in answers :P
but fully agree, instances aint bad....when used sensible, and doesnt make the main or entire gameplay, you can do the same event x amount of times successfully, without wanting to beat someone up....suppose that the use of battlegrounds :P
which gives MMOs that last for 1 month then off to the next, since no way you can create this kind of content in a good quality fast enough.. and that really defeats the purpose of MMOs to me.
yes is on the want worlds not action games, but ofc still with action parts.
Ok, this all sounds more in line to how I assumed it was. The reason I ask is becuase some players seem to be violently against instances to the point where its a major selling point for playing a game vs not playing a game. Although instances can be over used taking a such a hardline on instancing even at the expense of other areas of game play is over reacting. Its more about balance.
Thanks
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Darkfall is a good example, if they implement the vast dungeon system they are talking about it would be fantastic! it would provide many more months of new content I havent been exposed to yet.
If implementing such a feature wil require millions of dollars more, extra time, and extra servers to make the zones not instanced then I say go ahead and make them instanced, a few extra minutes of a load screen is not a big deal. On the other hand, if they have the technology and its easy to put in place then sure get rid of that load screen please.
its call balance.
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I don't think the technology is bad at all. In fact I would say it is essential (and that coming from a man who played a lot of Guk and Sol back in the pre-Kunark EQ days
) Shared zones have a lot of issues for certain types of content. Scripted events work much better in an instance. Like any tool available to a developer it can be used well or used badly.
Some people though have a strange ideological objection to it despite the fact that technology in this day and age clearly can't support a true completely open world game with meaningful content. maybe one day it will, but it ain't here yet!
Just a Note here never played Darkfall, and don't like FFA PvP games, but I know the people that most Darkfall players would hate this idea.
Darkfall is PvP game, Instances are completely againt the point of games like it.
It's like cars. Talk to somebody who drives only stick. ONLY stick. They may also sound quite vehement about it. It ain't nothing much though.
Alright, I hate instances because it reduces the realism, roleplayability, and the need for and sense of community.
How can Dragon Age Origins have instances, I thought it was a single player game?
Eh? Definitely provides a non-trivial increase in control over exactly how much power you get at any given moment. There are indisputable performance benefits for the skilled driver using stick. Not a great analogy for comparing instancing with non-instancing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I've seen people make a terrible comparison between "zoning" (via single player games or load screens in MMOs) and instancing (multiplayer based, particular MMO only) which separates you from the game world in your own private "room."
Instancing breaks the MMO aspect for me because I want a world full of people, not a single player game with light multiplayer functions. If a story cannot be told within the context of a large player base and must be done with in an instance, then it really has no place in an MMO for me.
I get way better game play and storylines in single player RPGs than MMOs anyway.
The kids arent all home yet
nah but seriously I dont see anything wrong with instances myself.
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As people have said, instances are a good thing when used properly, a terrible thing that can turn a MMO into a 1 player game when used wrongly.
Good idea: Using instancing to allow for 5-40 people to take on extremely powerful opponents.
Bad Idea: using instancing to allow 1 person to kill an extremely weak opponent over and over.
Good Idea: Instanced Objective-Based Player Vs Player Activity.
Bad Idea: Instanced duels/arenas that noone can watch.
LList goes on and on, but you get the idea.
About instances in PVP Games:
Yes and no, it depends how it is implemented. Most FFA PVP games I've played ended up with major lag issues that needed to be taken care of... Its often due to client-side or network limitations:
Shadowbane had a lot of lag issues during massive raids. One of the widely used defense strat was even to stack as many players as possible so attackers would be lagged to hell while their client was suddenly loading every characters, turning them into sitting ducks.
Aion had some major lag issue in the Abyss during GvG. I'm not sure where it's at right now.
World of Warcraft had to limit the number of players in Wintergrasp, because their servers couldn't handle the load on heavily populated servers.
Instances is just a mean to help companies to deal with such issues... :P
Instances are just a tool that can be used for good or evil, all in how they are implemented.
In WOW I never really had a problem with the raid instances, seemed like a pretty good idea, but there should have been some good open world dungeons tossed in as well but that doesn't seem to happen very often.
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They CAN be good but most of the time instances are used in such a way that I feel like none of my actions matter. If I lose in a PVP instance I can just queue up the same one five seconds later, and if I clear a dungeon with a legendary dragon then I know that I'll be doing it again next week so that I might get the sword I want.
It's all pathetic, mostly. A good use of instancing will be APB, which tracks progress of action that takes place in instances. Plus the instances are used in such a way that they don't seem like instances and they are also massive.
True, so why the hell someone would even throw DA into this is baffleing. It's a single player game so it can be considered one giant instance.
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I agree with most that instancing, when used sparingly in a player-centric faction-based game, can really augment the entertainment value of a game for limited situations. But when used heavily in a faction-based game, such as Star Trek Online, it fractures community and immersion so substantially that most of the entertainment value from should be a more open massively multiplayer game is lost. One correlation that is often drawn is, why bother paying $15/month as a subscription fee to an otherwise lobby-system shoebox single-player game.
that.
the more instanced you are, the more you are NOT an MMO. instancing fights against the whole massively multiplayer concept.
some people don't care about whether they are playing sp games, mp games, mmo games or hybrids of all of those. i do.
for me, the MMO part has always been what made me interested in these games. remove the massively multiplayer part and you remove all reason for me to play it.
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Good instancing: WoW, LOTRO.
Bad instancing: GW, ST:O, CO.
See the pattern? Games being held up by instancing aren't terribly "massive." Selective use of instancing is much more effective.