Massively in MMORPG should mean that all players play in the same world at the same time concurrently. That's the whole point. MMORPGs don't do that anymore instead they are just Multiplayer RPGs with implementations that allow 20-40-100 people play in instanced areas. That's why the state of all new and current MMORPGs suck right now and why the older MMORPGs that actually attempt to have a full MMORPG were so much more fun to play since they were closer to the actual definition. If we try to change the definition now though who would enforce it? No game companies would listen because just by slapping that genre title on their game alone they think (and may even succeed) it brings in game box/digitalbox sales from consumers who don't know the difference. (This applies to most all MMORPGs not just Guild Wars 2 which is also going to have instanced content)
Frankly, I think instanced content for fine-tuned small group challenges is fine. Without it being instanced, you can't have that. I am not a big fan of doing it for large groups (such as raiding however), as I think trying to fine-tune large groups is insanely problematic. Like you said as well, doing it for large groups then turns the game into something where you just don't have people interacting in the field very much. I think GW2 is doing a lot here to make things better. Some instanced stuff is not bad.
Indeed you are right to assume by noticing that as instances increase (and possibly also that as the world itself increases as well) that I believe there is a mathematical curve that the more this happens the less player interaction occurs (even if this means just seeing other players in the distance doing something... doesn't have to be trading items or communicating) which is directly responsible for how living a game world is. :P
I have a hard time understanding how people haven't read up on all the different aspects of GW2. I found myself in a conversation the other day and they hadn't even heard of GW2 let alone know anything about the dynamics. I was completely blown away they didn't even know anything about it.
"Great" I think to myself "now I have to explain the whole thing to these noobs" and commenced on filling them in on the game. I guess I shouldn't have been so disgusted, my parents don't even play videogames, but you'd think they still would have heard about it. Anyhow, they probably were the last people on the planet to live in ignorance of the greatest MMO ever not quite released.
A few months ago, it seemed like every other post in the Pub was looking for an MMO or was hoping someone would design an MMO that had a feature that GW2 is going to offer. And I always wanted to respond, "GW2 /thread" but never did. It really got to the point where I wanted to make a thread called "The GW2 /thread thread" and basically say what you're saying here. That this is the game that almost everybody who is posting here is looking for, it's the #1 most hyped game on this site, how can you not have heard of it?
In the past couple months though, I'm not seeing posts like that anymore. Lately it's been all about people wanting sandboxes. I don't know whether it's because people have heard about GW2 or whether it's because with SWTOR coming out, they figure that's the only kind of theme park that can exist.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
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Frankly, I think instanced content for fine-tuned small group challenges is fine. Without it being instanced, you can't have that. I am not a big fan of doing it for large groups (such as raiding however), as I think trying to fine-tune large groups is insanely problematic. Like you said as well, doing it for large groups then turns the game into something where you just don't have people interacting in the field very much. I think GW2 is doing a lot here to make things better. Some instanced stuff is not bad.
Indeed you are right to assume by noticing that as instances increase (and possibly also that as the world itself increases as well) that I believe there is a mathematical curve that the more this happens the less player interaction occurs (even if this means just seeing other players in the distance doing something... doesn't have to be trading items or communicating) which is directly responsible for how living a game world is. :P
A few months ago, it seemed like every other post in the Pub was looking for an MMO or was hoping someone would design an MMO that had a feature that GW2 is going to offer. And I always wanted to respond, "GW2 /thread" but never did. It really got to the point where I wanted to make a thread called "The GW2 /thread thread" and basically say what you're saying here. That this is the game that almost everybody who is posting here is looking for, it's the #1 most hyped game on this site, how can you not have heard of it?
In the past couple months though, I'm not seeing posts like that anymore. Lately it's been all about people wanting sandboxes. I don't know whether it's because people have heard about GW2 or whether it's because with SWTOR coming out, they figure that's the only kind of theme park that can exist.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007