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Open World and Instances: Saints Row Musing...
Yakkin
Member Posts: 919
So I'm playing Saints Row the Third, and a thought comes to my head as I enter an instance:
"If people are fine with instances existing in single-player open world games, then what's the big deal with instances existing in open-world massively multiplayer games?"
Granted, maybe there is some leap in logic I am missing, but it struck me as odd. Any explanation?
Also, INb4 Narius and his passionate love of lobbies (Yes, that does get annoying after a while).
Comments
There is no no biggie. Instance is pretty much an accepted practice in online gaming. Just some people here don't like it .. and i doubt if instance if ever going to go away just because a minority rant & moan.
What I think he means is the idea of loading screens to enter a dungeon or another zone. As in not entirely seamless, not necessarily breaking up every instance of the dungeon for X players, though that is pretty strongly linked to instances in MMOs as we all know.
I assume he is referring to a lot of people that post how loading into wherever breaks their immersion but then talk about how immersive games like, say Skyrim are, even though they load into places all the time in those games.
To me, the definition of "instance" is a enviroment from what multiple copies are created, one to each group of players.
Yeah, that's kinda what I meant, although truth be told both are almost interchangeable to me, so I apologize if there was some confusion over my meaning.
After loading screens or entering/exitting instances in a singleplayer game in most cases the ingame world has changed for you.
In most instances within a MMO nothing really changes in the ingame outside "open" world.
Kinda the same reason I accept story in singleplayer RPG's where in a MMORPG I expect the RPG part to come from it's players and not from the NPC's. Nothing really changes for other players once you saved a planet, a continent, a world.
I just want a certain degree of freedom set in a more virtual world to immerse myself into. Would I constantly be interupted by loading screen it lessons my ingame experiance and while it seems similar to singleplayer loading scenes it actually seperate you from the ingame world.
There are no instances in single palyer games LOL.. why on earth would a single player game run multiple versions of the same level that you on?
Now if your talking about zones that different kettle of fish, a zone is not an instance and does have its place in some MMOs.
Now Open world/Seamless worlds are a lot better, the reason we play MMOs is so we can play with other people and doing this in a open/seamelss world like in real life just feels a lot better.
I find the use of instances in an MMO annoying, if i go to a location in an MMO to meet up with someone I then dont want to have to switch to a different instance to find then.. it jsut means there are less people actualyl playing togeather. its a cheap way to get around performance issues thats all..
Surely there is. Borderland is a good example. There are millions of copies of the levels running at the same time, and you are in one copy with 3 other friends.
If there are 3 of you playing together, it's not a single-player game.
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It would seem many complaints about this stem from those who do not like their Immersion being broken, as well as those who hate any barrier or escape route for those who would like to avoid thier gank.
Edit: but what do I know?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
So i guess MP online games, but not MMO. How about that?
some games have instanced areas that copy the original, each time you reenter the place. so nothing stays. look at Demon Soul. Each time you enter the area it restarts, no matter how many times you cleared it.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
What is not social about talking to people in the lobby, and form a game together? That is as social as chatting with them in a world, then form a dungeon group.
And instances have many advantages .. the foremost is that your group is never going to be affected by unwanted others.
And yes, it is little difference from Diablo 3, or Borderland. So? Lobby games can be fun.