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Funcom strives for heavily instanced and instant gratification
Khors
Member Posts: 147
This is what "I" think (orange) the no-spin response would have looked like.
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Q1: My question is since there is instance based bosses, will there be non-instanced based bosses (world bosses)?
Famine: The question always comes up about instanced and non-instanced game play in MMO’s. However, first you must ask yourself whether you want to share your massively-multiplayer game, but rather have dungeons (and bosses) or keep them private for you or your group? Sharing could mean having to wait for content where private could mean a single-player lobby game like STO that completely fragments any semblance of massively-multiplayer and community at $15/month. . .not to mention, we will be catering to instant gratification with tons of entitlements for just showing up.
Aside from my perception of Funcom's pursuit for the continued dumbing down of massively-multiplayer games, I cant really believe that a developer would actually admit to and be proud of instant gratification as a design feature
Comments
This is a strange post. First off, you are making some asumptions. I have read on a few occassions that this game will be more "open world" than instanced. Also, how are they dumbing it down by having instanced content? I am not making the leap of logic there.
By the way, we are pretty much and instant gratification world these days so I do believe that comes in to play regardless of the product.
Sounds to me you just don't like Funcom.
Depens what people understand with "instant gratification". I know people who says 2-3 days you got all / maxed out everything. Some say week or more and other say several months.
Instant gratification is for me to go play a FPS game like BFBC2 and kill somebody. You can do it in a time of 5 min.
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the op is right. He shouldnt of changed the actual way the answer was worded because it pretty much said the same thing.
i read the interview and he does say how every dungeon and every mini encounter they make in game will be instanced. and the only part of the game that will be open will be the HUBS or towns. which = Guild Wars
which doesnt make it an MMO. im as tired as the op is of playing games that call themselves MMO's but then instance the fuckin shit out of the entire game. where if you arent in a town you dont see 1 fuckin person.
secret world = failure, if that is going to be their formula for building the game
Yep. Im not gonna knock GW since their have a great niche and business model. So,devs proud of a hubbed/lobby-system game that caters to instances for single-player or party-play as opposed to massively-multiplayer, and toot their horn about instant gratification. Unless their going to follow the same business model as GW, without a monthly subscription, I'd be hard pressed to touch this; I dont pay $15/month for a single-player or party-play lobby-system game.
Honestly, considering how bad FC burned the MMO fanbase with AoC's release, I'm completely shocked that not only does this game get talked about alot, but that it actually hit #1 on the hype meter.
Guess my wife is wrong, maybe I don't puff too much, because my memory is pretty crisp about the AoC Hype engine and failure that was it's release.
Maybe if 6 months to a year after release this game has at LEAST a few million subs with active players totalling over 15k on multiple servers I MIGHT consider the POSSIBILITY of giving FC more cash after watching the game for another 6 months.
Sorry FC.. Burn me once like that, and you can DIAF.
"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." - Henry Ford
Pretty sure it's mostly open world with the "hubs" just being regular towns with some instanced mini-games in them. Not sure how extensive the random "mini instanced" will be though.
I don't see what is so surprising. All mmorpgs are following suit and going into a more instanced model. In certain settings, games actually work better with instancing. That being said, all games should not use instancing.
Instancing doesn't always equal instant gratification, but it does mean that the content your are exploring is private. In many regards, it's a superior experience.
Imagine in a game like WoW if Ice Crown Citadel wasn't instanced. You'd have hundreds if not thousands filling the corridors and simply brute forcing Arthas down. All of the content would become a venerable game of tank n spank. To me, that is not immersive, nor fun.
I remember playing Asheron's Call back in the earlier years, back when there was a decent sized population. There was multiple times where I had to sit at the bottom of a dungeon, in a virtual line of 30-40 people and wait for "my turn" to loot the bad guy that had the item I wanted/needed. While that experience was unique, it was also frustrating. If you were the last person in line, and no one waited with you, there was a good chance that you wouldn't be able to kill said mob. These types of scenarios lead to ninja looting, and people "cutting" in line.
I would wager that many of the gamers who play mmorpgs, now, are busy adults. Probably some of the very same people who started playing these types of games over a decade ago. However, with an additional 10 years of age and responsibility tacked on, not very many really want a game that's a second job anymore. Why do you think WoW is so popular? You can pick up the game and play for a few hours per week and still make headway towards an ultimate goal. Developers and publishers have to cater to whichever demographic has the most money to pump into their game.
TSW will probably be heavily instanced and as long as the game launches ok, it will have a fanbase. The setting of the game alone is different enough to attract a number of people. TSW also has some more "sandbox-like" features, with no classes and a leveless system (iirc). Classless and Leveless systems aren't new, but placing them in a more themepark like setting is newer, and could be a factor in the game's success (good or bad).
This. For all those people who lament having dungeons instanced, please explain to me how the above situations represent a better experience.
*sigh* I wish people would dig deeper before they go on presuming something about a game based upon a single quote, neglecting the pile of other interviews and articles that have been written.
Maybe it'd be nice to have sort of updated overview post per game section here where all the important features and gameplay mechanics are being listed for the upcoming MMO's, it'd save a lot of misunderstandings.
About instances and open world in TSW, this is what has been said (in multiple occassions in several interviews and articles):
Does the game feature one large playing field with smaller instances tacked on like WoW, or is it more like Guild Wars with small communal areas where players can meet up, but the majority of the world is instanced?
Tornquist, the TSW game director, has stated several times that he abhorred instances and would only use it when the situation deemed it necessary, like progressing a storyline. But the favored model for most of the MMO world in TSW is open world.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
That's your right, not to play it. Others will probably enjoy playing TSW, just as there are people enjoying the AoC expansion RotGS, but no one is forced to play them.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Yeah, the setting intrigues me, but I'm avoiding this one as much as possible. And yeah, I am surprised.. 2 years ago pretty much the entire community was writing FC off as a failure from AoC and barring them from life.. Then this is announced and a majority of the same people are just chomping at the bit... Guess as much as some ppl bitch, FC got them by the cojones..
Any other dev (except Mythic) and I'd be on this like white on rice. But since it's FC, I'm just gonna /popcorn and wait.
"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." - Henry Ford
I guess welcome in club. You shall not forgive FailCom! The most important rule for me
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Which game dev has actually had a flawless launch? None. A good launch? Possibly Turbine (LoTRO). The remaining launches have been riddled with issues..
So yeah, if launch problems makes you cry stay away from any and all MMO releases the first couple of years to be safe
I wouldn't say FC has them by the cojones, more like FC has a track record of bad launches (AoC, AO), but they do improve their games. If anything, people should just wait 3-6 months before even giving TSW a look, based upon past experiences. People are more willing to forgive FC, because they have improved upon their games which had poor launches. Compare FC with Cryptic, and you'll probably find that more people are willing to risk a new game with FC than Cryptic.
Since when did MMO mean 'non-instanced'? I happen to enjoy instanced MMOs much more than 'open world'. When I go down a dark and mysterious dungeon to fight the Devil of devilness, I want to feel like me (and my group) are the first ones there after hundreds of years, not form a line behind 20 other players and wait for my turn to kill the guy.
In the interviews it was mentioned by Tornquist and others that there will be instanced dungeons and mini-dungeons in the cases where it's deemed necessary for the storylines to progress, where the open world wouldn't be handy to use for it.
Same line of thinking as ArenaNet mentioned for GW2: open world but instances for (personal) storyline progressions
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I was in the same boat up until they turned things around in AoC. It's still not my kind of game but they managed to fix a lot of things and make a lot of player wanted changes. Considering AoC made a turn around and is doing ok most have dropped the failcom stuff. Few kids continue for w/e reason but thats expected.
@OP I didn't get from the interview what you did. The type of instancing they are talking about is similar to UO and WoW.
UO's later Dungeons that included Boss type mobs became instanced (I'm reffering to peerless dungeons). They did this to keep you from having to worry about others downing the boss you fought your way to fight.
So.... do you feel WoW and UO are single player Lobby games? With what you said it sure sounds that way lol.
ragnar tornquist has never let anyone down. every game that guy's ever touched has always been decent (anarchy online, the longest journey, dreamfall).
this games going to be solid too
Games i'm playing right now...
"In short, I thought NGE was a very bad idea" - Raph Koster talking about NGE on his blog at raphkoster.com
HA! You act like instant gratification is a bad thing. Heres a news flash: MMORPGS are videogames. Games are meant to be fun. Its pretty simple. I for one dont want to sit around doing nothing or mindlessly killing rabbits for hours on end. I want to have fun, and thats something that no MMO Ive played has given me. If you want to waste your time WORKING in a videogame rather than playing, you go ahead, but dont assume that everyone wants to work or wait before they have fun.
Grasping hard at straws to bash a game that we know next to nothing about yet... Yeah that's productive, or maybe just trolling for some "Failcom" hatred is more like it. Nothing means anything until people get hands on with a game...
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"Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places..." ~ H.P.Lovecraft, "From Beyond"
Member Since March 2004
OP is way off base. He is taking that whole quote totally out of context.