Good article. For everyone that is critical of Guild Wars, I think this web site has it rated #1 for months now. I havent seen any other games dethrone it. Must be doing something right.
As many of you already said, Instancing is here to stay. There are too many benefits for all involved. I loved EQ1, until I experienced griefers, campers and too many time I had to change my chat settings to filter out the dolts in the zone.
To me, Massive multiplayers means just that, many players playing a game at once. I don't need to feel to have tens of players all around me to enjoy a game. However, If I want to talk with a live person whose avatar I can interact with and develop friendships, I can. Sometimes I want to venture into areas myself, others I would like to see what the society is doing and join in. Instances are the obvious answer.
How can it be improved? From a role playing sense, perhaps random missions with random instance spots. If your group lays siege and gets in Crushbone (EQ), (instanced), they clear it and perhaps after they leave a zone message or a GW movie plays, and players see a castle ruin or closed cave entrance with boulders. (Maybe it resets after 24 hrs). Players generate new instances if they request a group quest or trigger it somewhere else. Perhaps a dark elf camp spawns when a player speaks to an Elven capatin, etc.
I would also be interested in seeing player run instanced dungeons. Perhaps an end game goal. A high level PC spends money to not only get a house, but perhaps a cellar, a treehouse, their own cave, a mud pit, etc. If other players wander by and say, "Hey neat treehouse! Lets take a peek." They zone in and experience the unique event. Loot and experience should be restricted to prevent exploiting. However, ,it could provide endless fun.
Originally posted by Finduilas To all of the above, I ask, what would YOU do to stop them? If stratholme was free for all, how would YOU prevent all the above occurring?
The answer is pretty simple really, more content, if you had a hundred places in WoW with similar grade drops and challenge then people would spread out and engage those mobs as well.
The problem EQ and a lot of other MMOs have is that whenever they bring out a new expansion they also raise the quality of items. All players want the best items they can get their hands on therefore they all migrate to the new expansion zones and for the most part ignore the older zones where not so good equipment drops. The key is to have enough endgame content available so that such spawn congestion does not occur. Rather than raising the quality of the items they should be finding way they can make the items more diverse, therefore still giving players a reason to frequent the older zones as well.
One of the main reasons I quit WoW was a lack of content, there are just a handful of things you can do at level 60 to improve your character. After running most of the instances 10 times you have the majority of the gear you want from them and having to keep running them is very dull, essentially grinding the zone until you get the items you want. Other than that its just grinding mobs to raise faction to get recipes or items, grinding BGs to gain honour to get other items, and grinding for the sake of grinding.
Lets also not forget that there are two types of instancing, the type where you get your own instance for your group (as in WoW & GW) and the type where the game creates a new instance of an area that is considered overpopulated (as seen in EQ2). The first type doesnt have any place in an MMO as it is essentially turning the MMO back into a limited player co-operative game. The second type sort of has a place in MMOs, but if there was a sufficient quantity of alternative content of the same quality it would not be necessary.
10 distinct areas with differing content of a similar quality would not take any more server resources than 10 identical instances, the only difference between the two is that the first one requires more effort from the developer. And this is the root of the problem, instancing allows the developers to cut back on content creation costs, its not about player enjoyment. Blizzard are the epitomy of this at the moment, they have 10+ times the revenue of other MMO developers and yet still struggle to create a 5th of the quantity of new content.
BTW, the issue with players just working into a spot and camping it is also down to lack of content. In EQ most of the items where straight drops from mobs, camping that mob until the item dropped was the optimal way to get the item, either that or farming up the cash and buying the item. Had they chosen to distribute the better items mainly through quest completion then the necessity to camp and cash farm would be reduced. This is one area where WoW is actually pretty good, in the run upto level 60 it is more fun and rewarding to do quests than mob/cash grinding. There is a need to travel about and you only really have to kill the quest mobs a few times at most, unfortunately as you near level 60 is switches back into the old EQ method of mob/zone camping and grinding.
I like both type of games. But instances sure breaks down the community of a game. Look at Guild Wars. It's a pretty good copy of Diablo II really. The only difference is that you group up with people visually in game, not in a chatroom. It's brilliant, and even more brilliant because they made the game free of monthly charge. Reason how and why they could do that? Big part of it is probebly because they don't need as much serverpower as a "classic" MMO needs which lowers the costs for them. Also the fact that every upcoming expansion will cost a coin or two. Anyway, I enjoy that type of game.. even though these types of games don't last as long as a more challenging game do. The only thing that made me quit playing Guild Wars was because I couldn't stand the carebear factor in it. The pvp was filled with action and also could get very ugly, rough at times.. just like it is in Lineage II. Though the pve side of the game was not very appealing. Once you had completed the game you ran out of things to do. And if it would have taken 6months to do so I wouldn't have mind. But after have playing the game for a week and reaching max level, then completing it a few days later isn't really what I would describe as a videogame. I would call it... a sandpit(sandbox) for 5 year olds.. Now do we really need something like that? I remember the days when you used to play Zelda, Alundra or other adventure typed rpgs and none of them took less than a month to complete. The games coming now for the more casual type of players is not only disturbing, but dumbs down the whole gaming industry in MY opinion. I've even had longer monopoly rounds than the time it took for me to complete guild wars. Luckely the PVP kept me in game, there it had challenge, without it.. I'm afraid they would have lost a lot of customers by now. If a game is to casual, you run out of things to do, and when you run out of things to do you get bored and when you get bored you quit playing the game. Now.. what has this to do with instancing? Well, a fully instanced game does not have the same flourishing community as a classic MMO has. I continued playing Star Wars Galaxies for about 3 months just because of the great people I met in game, and even came back to it again just to play with the friends I met there. I don't see that happening in an instanced game... I'm sorry. The good parts of instanced games is that I don't think I've ever had those major lags I used to have in Lineage II, Star Wars Galaxies Everquest, Everquest II.. In Guild Wars all you would experience some times was short 2-3 second lags and that was usually during they updated an zone or something.. Hmm, I could actually go on forever in this subject as I feel there is so much good and bad to say about what this "instancing" has brought us, though I have to get back in game now.. :-) I'm more of the oldtype gamer. I love challenges and when I fall down I run back and try again. I mean, who didn't load the final bosses in the Final Fantasy series more than once because they died and still felt they had to go back and try again? Sure... Instancing took away competing, but it also took away griefing. There are always downsides with new ideas and I'm sure we'll see a lot of new ideas which will try to combine the two different types that are now existing in the world of MMO's. Hopefully very soon.. ^^
Originally posted by obier ... But after have playing the game for a week and reaching max level, then completing it a few days later...
Before I comment on the actual topic of this message I will cite my experiences with Guild Wars. First it has to be said that I have played a number of MMORPGs (AC, EQ, DAoC, SWG to name a few) and so I feel I am reasonable in my opinions. And while I have moved on for one reason or another I still recognize what makes a game endure, at least for me.
First, I for one have a hard time understanding how anyone thinks they have completed Guild Wars after they have reached max level and completed all the missions once. In real terms that's only a small part of the game. You probably havent unlocked all the skills for your character and, if you have, thats only two classes out of six. You definitely havent found and unlocked all the weapon and armor upgrades, that takes weeks, maybe months. Once you have done all of that then and only then are you ready for the best part of the game; the PvP and GvG matches, (Which takes a group of tight knit players to really do well.) where with all the skills and upgrades you have acquired you can truly build unique fighting avatars for competition in these battles.
Now as far as player communities go, I think Guild Wars actually promotes some pretty nice communities; theyre called Guilds. And while the random pick-up groups will often be found with something lacking, which really tends to encourage players to either form their own guild or join an existing one.
And this gets down to the basis of human interaction, (if I can wax both philosophical and psychological as the same time) that the best relations are usually not found by grabbing the first person that comes along no matter what your purpose, but by a concerted effort on the part of both parties. Think for a minute how much effort you put into finding a job. It took me a while to realize this in the game by the way. But once I set out to find a group of like minded individuals to group with (yes, a guild), no small task I might add, I finally found a group of gamers that shared what I thought was important in the game and I have found myself grouping with them more then anyone else in game.
Only once you have unlocked all the game upgrades and found a Guild to play with, then you can start to strategize on how to form teams for PvP and GvG. And then you can rake up the points and achieve fame and fortune. But I understand that this is not what everyone wants to do in a MMORPG and that it why there are so many choices on the market.
That being said, and while I truly appreciate the instancing for missions and quests in Guild Wars, I actually do miss the expansive random explorable worlds that AC or DAoC offer. Personally, I would like a game that has both and Im sure it would not be that hard to add it to the game. (Any GW developers listening out there?) Every game evolves and Im sure Guild Wars will too. Remember EQ in the early days. They were plagued with camping and kill stealing etc. and what was their answer; Instancing. Instancing is here to stay; I think the only thing in question is how to find a good balance? Guild Wars has opened this discussion topic to a wide audience due to its complete adoption of instancing; the overall affect on the gaming world is yet to be determined.
Instancing is just an example of taking shortcuts by the developers - game design and/or overseeing their Player Rules (for griefing actions by abusive players).
The simple solution is more randomness - spatial and time. Make several cavern complexes (of near equal depth for getting to one of several "boss" rooms) and have the "Boss" monster and its loot appear in any one of several end rooms at random times. With 5 cavern complexes filled with the typical monsters and a few "sub boss" monsters, each having 4 end rooms allows lots of spots for the "Boss" monster to appear. Add in random time elements. Add in, as needed, quest instancing for the last room and there will be minimal camping.
Just takes effort by the developers.
Multiple cavern complexes would be separated in that mountain range, just like forest camps in a forest, cave lairs in other areas, etc. It's rather hard for a group of dedicated campers to cover both the spatial distances AND the time element.
Even if groups camp a spot, why do developers allow that via the monsters there. Would the monsters allow a group to continually kill their members or leaders? I think not. Continually farmed monsters don't have time to gather loot - so loot element greatly reduced. Add to that the natural instinct to call for reinforcements and the monsters should be able to rid their lair of the offending group.
There is more to designing a lair of monsters than just the terrain and marking spawn spots. Players will quickly adapt and camp that spot. Add in randomness and smart AI and the easy static becomes a more realistic dynamic.
Instancing shifts the game to single player mode or that of hosting a group. Certainly that is contrary to character to character interaction, meeting new players (via their characters), and the unpredictability of meaningful PvP (when character based).
The problem lies more with the excessive use of instancing imo. Instances can allow for better scripted events, due mainly to the fact that devs can have a better idea of who and how many will be trying to complete it. Another fact to considering is that it's important to prevent your content from being trivialized. Having a moderate use of instances for dungeons that have a specific flow/story is fine as long as you couple it with good outside encounter design with outdoor raid events, large non-instance dungeon areas, and better dynamic content.
I agree with Boeskyle, monsters need to be a little more reactive to players, instead of just standing there waiting to be killed. Even if the random/dynamic elements were scripted and not truly dynamic, it would still give a living breathing feel to the world. Something that a lot of these MMOs are currently lacking.
Comments
Good article. For everyone that is critical of Guild Wars, I think this web site has it rated #1 for months now. I havent seen any other games dethrone it. Must be doing something right.
As many of you already said, Instancing is here to stay. There are too many benefits for all involved. I loved EQ1, until I experienced griefers, campers and too many time I had to change my chat settings to filter out the dolts in the zone.
To me, Massive multiplayers means just that, many players playing a game at once. I don't need to feel to have tens of players all around me to enjoy a game. However, If I want to talk with a live person whose avatar I can interact with and develop friendships, I can. Sometimes I want to venture into areas myself, others I would like to see what the society is doing and join in. Instances are the obvious answer.
How can it be improved? From a role playing sense, perhaps random missions with random instance spots. If your group lays siege and gets in Crushbone (EQ), (instanced), they clear it and perhaps after they leave a zone message or a GW movie plays, and players see a castle ruin or closed cave entrance with boulders. (Maybe it resets after 24 hrs). Players generate new instances if they request a group quest or trigger it somewhere else. Perhaps a dark elf camp spawns when a player speaks to an Elven capatin, etc.
I would also be interested in seeing player run instanced dungeons. Perhaps an end game goal. A high level PC spends money to not only get a house, but perhaps a cellar, a treehouse, their own cave, a mud pit, etc. If other players wander by and say, "Hey neat treehouse! Lets take a peek." They zone in and experience the unique event. Loot and experience should be restricted to prevent exploiting. However, ,it could provide endless fun.
Instancing.
Instant sing.
Its like hanging out in elevators for the music.
Go here instead.
http://www.pimpwarsonline.com/
R
The answer is pretty simple really, more content, if you had a hundred places in WoW with similar grade drops and challenge then people would spread out and engage those mobs as well.
The problem EQ and a lot of other MMOs have is that whenever they bring out a new expansion they also raise the quality of items. All players want the best items they can get their hands on therefore they all migrate to the new expansion zones and for the most part ignore the older zones where not so good equipment drops. The key is to have enough endgame content available so that such spawn congestion does not occur. Rather than raising the quality of the items they should be finding way they can make the items more diverse, therefore still giving players a reason to frequent the older zones as well.
One of the main reasons I quit WoW was a lack of content, there are just a handful of things you can do at level 60 to improve your character. After running most of the instances 10 times you have the majority of the gear you want from them and having to keep running them is very dull, essentially grinding the zone until you get the items you want. Other than that its just grinding mobs to raise faction to get recipes or items, grinding BGs to gain honour to get other items, and grinding for the sake of grinding.
Lets also not forget that there are two types of instancing, the type where you get your own instance for your group (as in WoW & GW) and the type where the game creates a new instance of an area that is considered overpopulated (as seen in EQ2). The first type doesnt have any place in an MMO as it is essentially turning the MMO back into a limited player co-operative game. The second type sort of has a place in MMOs, but if there was a sufficient quantity of alternative content of the same quality it would not be necessary.
10 distinct areas with differing content of a similar quality would not take any more server resources than 10 identical instances, the only difference between the two is that the first one requires more effort from the developer. And this is the root of the problem, instancing allows the developers to cut back on content creation costs, its not about player enjoyment. Blizzard are the epitomy of this at the moment, they have 10+ times the revenue of other MMO developers and yet still struggle to create a 5th of the quantity of new content.
BTW, the issue with players just working into a spot and camping it is also down to lack of content. In EQ most of the items where straight drops from mobs, camping that mob until the item dropped was the optimal way to get the item, either that or farming up the cash and buying the item. Had they chosen to distribute the better items mainly through quest completion then the necessity to camp and cash farm would be reduced. This is one area where WoW is actually pretty good, in the run upto level 60 it is more fun and rewarding to do quests than mob/cash grinding. There is a need to travel about and you only really have to kill the quest mobs a few times at most, unfortunately as you near level 60 is switches back into the old EQ method of mob/zone camping and grinding.
I like both type of games. But instances sure breaks down the community of a game. Look at Guild Wars. It's a pretty good copy of Diablo II really. The only difference is that you group up with people visually in game, not in a chatroom. It's brilliant, and even more brilliant because they made the game free of monthly charge. Reason how and why they could do that? Big part of it is probebly because they don't need as much serverpower as a "classic" MMO needs which lowers the costs for them. Also the fact that every upcoming expansion will cost a coin or two.
Anyway, I enjoy that type of game.. even though these types of games don't last as long as a more challenging game do. The only thing that made me quit playing Guild Wars was because I couldn't stand the carebear factor in it. The pvp was filled with action and also could get very ugly, rough at times.. just like it is in Lineage II. Though the pve side of the game was not very appealing. Once you had completed the game you ran out of things to do. And if it would have taken 6months to do so I wouldn't have mind. But after have playing the game for a week and reaching max level, then completing it a few days later isn't really what I would describe as a videogame. I would call it... a sandpit(sandbox) for 5 year olds.. Now do we really need something like that? I remember the days when you used to play Zelda, Alundra or other adventure typed rpgs and none of them took less than a month to complete. The games coming now for the more casual type of players is not only disturbing, but dumbs down the whole gaming industry in MY opinion. I've even had longer monopoly rounds than the time it took for me to complete guild wars. Luckely the PVP kept me in game, there it had challenge, without it.. I'm afraid they would have lost a lot of customers by now. If a game is to casual, you run out of things to do, and when you run out of things to do you get bored and when you get bored you quit playing the game. Now.. what has this to do with instancing? Well, a fully instanced game does not have the same flourishing community as a classic MMO has. I continued playing Star Wars Galaxies for about 3 months just because of the great people I met in game, and even came back to it again just to play with the friends I met there. I don't see that happening in an instanced game... I'm sorry.
The good parts of instanced games is that I don't think I've ever had those major lags I used to have in Lineage II, Star Wars Galaxies Everquest, Everquest II.. In Guild Wars all you would experience some times was short 2-3 second lags and that was usually during they updated an zone or something.. Hmm, I could actually go on forever in this subject as I feel there is so much good and bad to say about what this "instancing" has brought us, though I have to get back in game now.. :-)
I'm more of the oldtype gamer. I love challenges and when I fall down I run back and try again.
I mean, who didn't load the final bosses in the Final Fantasy series more than once because they died and still felt they had to go back and try again? Sure... Instancing took away competing, but it also took away griefing. There are always downsides with new ideas and I'm sure we'll see a lot of new ideas which will try to combine the two different types that are now existing in the world of MMO's.
Hopefully very soon.. ^^
Before I comment on the actual topic of this message I will cite my experiences with Guild Wars. First it has to be said that I have played a number of MMORPGs (AC, EQ, DAoC, SWG to name a few) and so I feel I am reasonable in my opinions. And while I have moved on for one reason or another I still recognize what makes a game endure, at least for me.
First, I for one have a hard time understanding how anyone thinks they have completed Guild Wars after they have reached max level and completed all the missions once. In real terms that's only a small part of the game. You probably havent unlocked all the skills for your character and, if you have, thats only two classes out of six. You definitely havent found and unlocked all the weapon and armor upgrades, that takes weeks, maybe months. Once you have done all of that then and only then are you ready for the best part of the game; the PvP and GvG matches, (Which takes a group of tight knit players to really do well.) where with all the skills and upgrades you have acquired you can truly build unique fighting avatars for competition in these battles.
Now as far as player communities go, I think Guild Wars actually promotes some pretty nice communities; theyre called Guilds. And while the random pick-up groups will often be found with something lacking, which really tends to encourage players to either form their own guild or join an existing one.
And this gets down to the basis of human interaction, (if I can wax both philosophical and psychological as the same time) that the best relations are usually not found by grabbing the first person that comes along no matter what your purpose, but by a concerted effort on the part of both parties. Think for a minute how much effort you put into finding a job. It took me a while to realize this in the game by the way. But once I set out to find a group of like minded individuals to group with (yes, a guild), no small task I might add, I finally found a group of gamers that shared what I thought was important in the game and I have found myself grouping with them more then anyone else in game.
Only once you have unlocked all the game upgrades and found a Guild to play with, then you can start to strategize on how to form teams for PvP and GvG. And then you can rake up the points and achieve fame and fortune. But I understand that this is not what everyone wants to do in a MMORPG and that it why there are so many choices on the market.
That being said, and while I truly appreciate the instancing for missions and quests in Guild Wars, I actually do miss the expansive random explorable worlds that AC or DAoC offer. Personally, I would like a game that has both and Im sure it would not be that hard to add it to the game. (Any GW developers listening out there?) Every game evolves and Im sure Guild Wars will too. Remember EQ in the early days. They were plagued with camping and kill stealing etc. and what was their answer; Instancing.
Instancing is here to stay; I think the only thing in question is how to find a good balance? Guild Wars has opened this discussion topic to a wide audience due to its complete adoption of instancing; the overall affect on the gaming world is yet to be determined.
Instancing is just an example of taking shortcuts by the developers - game design and/or overseeing their Player Rules (for griefing actions by abusive players).
The simple solution is more randomness - spatial and time. Make several cavern complexes (of near equal depth for getting to one of several "boss" rooms) and have the "Boss" monster and its loot appear in any one of several end rooms at random times. With 5 cavern complexes filled with the typical monsters and a few "sub boss" monsters, each having 4 end rooms allows lots of spots for the "Boss" monster to appear. Add in random time elements. Add in, as needed, quest instancing for the last room and there will be minimal camping.
Just takes effort by the developers.
Multiple cavern complexes would be separated in that mountain range, just like forest camps in a forest, cave lairs in other areas, etc. It's rather hard for a group of dedicated campers to cover both the spatial distances AND the time element.
Even if groups camp a spot, why do developers allow that via the monsters there. Would the monsters allow a group to continually kill their members or leaders? I think not. Continually farmed monsters don't have time to gather loot - so loot element greatly reduced. Add to that the natural instinct to call for reinforcements and the monsters should be able to rid their lair of the offending group.
There is more to designing a lair of monsters than just the terrain and marking spawn spots. Players will quickly adapt and camp that spot. Add in randomness and smart AI and the easy static becomes a more realistic dynamic.
Instancing shifts the game to single player mode or that of hosting a group. Certainly that is contrary to character to character interaction, meeting new players (via their characters), and the unpredictability of meaningful PvP (when character based).
The problem lies more with the excessive use of instancing imo. Instances can allow for better scripted events, due mainly to the fact that devs can have a better idea of who and how many will be trying to complete it. Another fact to considering is that it's important to prevent your content from being trivialized. Having a moderate use of instances for dungeons that have a specific flow/story is fine as long as you couple it with good outside encounter design with outdoor raid events, large non-instance dungeon areas, and better dynamic content.
I agree with Boeskyle, monsters need to be a little more reactive to players, instead of just standing there waiting to be killed. Even if the random/dynamic elements were scripted and not truly dynamic, it would still give a living breathing feel to the world. Something that a lot of these MMOs are currently lacking.