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The instancing Poll on this site scares me.

13

Comments

  • ross1893ross1893 Member Posts: 47

    Fair enough I decided, so what would replace this fundamental aspect of
    most recent MMOs? Well, this is where the designers really displayed
    some innovation; they have come up with a concept called “encounter
    realms”, which are basically open instances. The way this system works
    is that a group of players start down a path towards an in-game quest
    or boss. Along their way, they perform certain actions, which are
    required in order to meet the end goal. Since all of this happens in
    the open world, once this group reaches the goal, it belongs to them,
    regardless of any other players waiting at the end for the boss to
    spawn or treasure to appear. Only those that have completed the
    requirements along the path can claim the prize. This system works to
    promote the social aspect that Sigil Games is going for; along the way,
    if this group gets ambushed somehow, any other group that happens to be
    in the area can lend a hand. http://www.gamingexcellence.com/pc/games/379/preview.shtml

    The guy compares Vanguard to Guild Wars which makes no sense to me. Yet the idea seems like it would fix the camping problem.


  • deggilatordeggilator Member Posts: 520


    Originally posted by Distortion0

    Most people want 50/50? Are you out of your minds? Does anyone else feel that half instanced is enough to ruin the feeling that you are in a huge world with thousands of other players when playing an MMO?


    Are you generally scared when people have a different opinion than yours? I'm so tired of such an attitude and it's the main reason why I've stopped posting in these boards as frequently as I have.

    Some people (incl. me) prefer a non-instanced world because of the immersion it offers. Others prefer instances because of the gameplay advantages. Not everyone has the same taste and there is no right or wrong way to make an MMORPG; it's only a matter of satisfying different target audiences.

    I see the same old whining all the time, from people who are too blind to see that the MMOG market is growing and expanding. Vanguard: SOH will be released this year and will satisfy the no-instances crowd. DDO, on the other hand, has already been released for the instancing crowd. There's a growing variety of games to choose from and certainly no need to hear the same complaints or the same doom preaching over and over again.

    Currently playing:
    * City of Heroes: Deggial, Assault Rifle/Devices Blaster. Server: Defiant.
    * City of Villains: Snakeroot, Plant/Thorns Dominator. Server: Defiant.

  • DamonVileDamonVile Member UncommonPosts: 4,818


    Originally posted by busdriver



    Your response just shows how poor the design of nowadays MMOs really is. I called people who want instances idiots because they don't demand game developers come up with something that keeps the immersion in game while negates the 'camping in line' out of the game.

    Want alternative?
    I'm not a game developer so I don't get paid to think these sort of things, so I just use another game in development as an example here. Darkfall has moving mobs, when you kill all mobs from one area to extinction, they move to another area. So there you have a simple solution that kills campers in their current form yet keeps the world instance-free.

    It IS allowed to demand more from game developers. You're the one buying their products after all. Don't let them get away with half-assed solutions goddamnit.


    I'm not the one complaing about instancing. Limited instancing like wow has fits my play style so I don't need a better solution. When I'm in the instance I don't think about the fact that no one else can get in. To me all I did was walk through a cave mouth and continued on my adventure.

    I'm there to have fun with my guild not fight over whos turn it is to kill the boss. In fact I don't want to see other groups doing the same bosses layer.

    When I'm out walking around the world doing quests ect I like the fact that it's a real world with other people there. But when I'm down in that dungeon seeing 10-50 other people it ruins my fun. Instances is a solution that works fo me and I'll pay for that.

    This is a dead horse however. There are lots of styles of games out there, and some are going to be made with instances. There's also others who wont and try and be totally seemless. It's easy enough to just not play the ones you don't like and stop worrying about them. For some reason however, some players need to focus on the games they don't like and try and get them to change to the one true way to have a game.
  • JorevJorev Member Posts: 1,500


    Originally posted by deggilator


    Originally posted by Distortion0

    Most people want 50/50? Are you out of your minds? Does anyone else feel that half instanced is enough to ruin the feeling that you are in a huge world with thousands of other players when playing an MMO?

    Are you generally scared when people have a different opinion than yours? I'm so tired of such an attitude and it's the main reason why I've stopped posting in these boards as frequently as I have.

    Some people (incl. me) prefer a non-instanced world because of the immersion it offers. Others prefer instances because of the gameplay advantages. Not everyone has the same taste and there is no right or wrong way to make an MMORPG; it's only a matter of satisfying different target audiences.

    I see the same old whining all the time, from people who are too blind to see that the MMOG market is growing and expanding. Vanguard: SOH will be released this year and will satisfy the no-instances crowd. DDO, on the other hand, has already been released for the instancing crowd. There's a growing variety of games to choose from and certainly no need to hear the same complaints or the same doom preaching over and over again.


    It's not that most people posting against instancing are unaccepting of other playstyle choices. If someone likes instancing because it allows them to not interact with others then fine, but what I mostly hear is they want to interact with others, yet want to avoid the crowding/camping issues.

    Well as explained by myself and others who have offered several solutions, there are much better ways of dealing with those problems than by breaking other important aspects of a MMOG, interaction in a seemless world, reasonable competition for resources and rewards instead of flooding the market, etc.

    image
    "We feel gold selling and websites that promote it damage games like Vanguard and will do everything possible to combat it."
    Brad McQuaid
    Chairman & CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
    Executive Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
    www.vanguardsoh

  • ElnatorElnator Member Posts: 6,077


    Originally posted by Jorev

    I find it amazing that the single most popular defense of instancing is to remove spawn camping.
    That just proves that instancing is a developer's lazy way of dealing with the issue and that players who prefer instancing really don't like MMOGs. That's fine, but just admit that games that are heavily instanced are not true MMOGs. If you don't want to share the game world with other people, which realistically will include some competition for resources and rewards, as it should be, then games like GW, CoV-CoH, DDO etc are what you want, but please don't suggest these games represent true MMOGs or that instancing has a valid place in all MMOGs.
    The intelligent way to avoid spawn camping is by removing predictable drops and by not limiting them to a specific mob. How hard is that? If high end loot has the possibility of dropping from many higher end mobs, you shouldn't constantly see lines for specific mobs. You can still increase/decrease the drop ratios for certain items by mob type or boss mob in order to influence traffic into a certain dungeon or zone, but by sharing the loot table with other high end spawns, you remove the linear bottlenecks of early MMOGs which are retarded.
    You will never see killstealing if the person who makes first contact has looting rights. This is a no-brainer. If your arguement is that you came upon a spawn first but hesitated in order to prep or plan or call your friends over an unrealistic chat channel or worse, a live communication system, to come join you because uber mob has spawned, then too bad, deal with it.
    Instancing does more damage to a game's fun and economy by promoting relentless farming.



    I'm sorry I dissagree with you on so many levels it's mind boggling. 
    1) you claim that scattering the loot around among mobs is a solution.  Sure that works but it's not as fun.  I've played games that used that method and it's just not quite as fun as going on an adventure to kill king so-and-so to get his flaming sword of utter distruction.  THAT's fun.  Getting the flaming sword of utter destruction off a random mob wandering in a dungeon is fun... but not AS fun... if you take my meaning.  However, I DO love true MMORPG's.  You're missing the point that most of us are making.  Using limited *limited* instancing just for quests/adventures *IS* fun.  Sure there are other ways of doing it.  I like Darkfall's style but I also like DDO's style.  Sure instancing breaks you off from the main population but that is the entire point of an RPG.  You're supposed to be SPECIAL... not 1 of 10,000,000 people running through the same dungeon.   However, it IS fun to be in an online world with thousands of other players for the vast majority of the game.  Notice I said specific QUESTS.  There should be an explorable world, even explorable dungeons, with random creature encounters in them that players can encounter that are completely un-instanced.

    But for quests/adventure areas that are 'story' type areas?  I much prefer the idea of instancing them from a player standpoint.  It's just a lot of fun to be in an adventure with a group of people where you aren't running over other players ever 2 seconds.

    One of the COOLEST things in EQ was being the first few people to a zone.  I remember during beta how SCARY the dungeons were, because nobody else was there with you.  The group would wander in and we'd know... if we die we are going to have one hell of a time getting our crap back... It was exciting.  Once release came and hundreds of thousands of people were playing Guk was a joke.  I could literally run, generally unimpeded during peak time, from one end of Guk to the other and odds are I wouldn't see a single monster that wasn't in the process of being killed because there were SO MANY people in the dungeon.  That just isn't scary.  During off hours when nobody was on it was good because Guk wasn't quite so over camped.  But if you knew the popular areas you could generally safely make your way pretty deep into the dungeon.  Now, I'm not saying the entire dungeon of Guk should have been instanced :)  But certainly instancing for the areas around the named mobs would have been cool.... or a specific quest that triggers the named mobs only for your group... or some such...  Or a quest that sends you into an instance of the dungeon for some things would be neat.

    But I'm not for 100% instancing by any stretch.  And I didn't like the options on the poll either.  I prefer a majority of non-instanced content with very specific instancing that is quest oriented.

    DDO goes too far only in that all it has is quest driven content.  There is NOTHING to do in the game that isn't related to a story specific quest.  You can't go out and kill random spawns for fun/xp... you HAVE to enter an adventure/quest.  That's the only reason DDO's instancing is over done.  Out in the CITY there isn't a problem with instances (though having to zone into every shop, tavern, etc, is a bit annoying).  If they added a world, and other cities, to the non-instanced section of the game DDO would be almost perfect.  Maybe throw in a few caverns and dungeons that aren't part of any 'quests' that are non-instanced as well.  With random spawn monsters in the wilderness and open areas etc.  The game would be much better because there would be a majority of non-instanced content while the story driven quests remain instanced.

    THAT is my idea of a good MMORPG.

    This black and white mindset is silly.  Some instancing is a good thing. Too much instancing is a bad thing.  It's just that simple.  NO instancing, while it CAN work, is generally more trouble than it's worth.  While I would love game developers to come up with a better solution than instancing (and Darkfall appears to be trying, though I have serious doubts about that game ever seeing the light of day) until they do I like instancing as an interim solution.

    Basically:  Until/unless something better comes along, I'll go for partial instancing every time.  That doesn't make a game any less of an MMORPG either.  Because if it's only partial instancing you aren't changing the fact that it's an MMORPG.  Do you consider WoW not to be an MMORPG?  It's got instances... almost all of the endgame is instances.  EQ2 has instances.  Etc.  Saying that instancing causes a game to not be an MMORPG is stupid.  It completely depends on how the instancing is done.

    Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
    Sig image Pending
    Still in: A couple Betas

  • ElnatorElnator Member Posts: 6,077


    Originally posted by ross1893

    Fair enough I decided, so what would replace this fundamental aspect of
    most recent MMOs? Well, this is where the designers really displayed
    some innovation; they have come up with a concept called “encounter
    realms”, which are basically open instances. The way this system works
    is that a group of players start down a path towards an in-game quest
    or boss. Along their way, they perform certain actions, which are
    required in order to meet the end goal. Since all of this happens in
    the open world, once this group reaches the goal, it belongs to them,
    regardless of any other players waiting at the end for the boss to
    spawn or treasure to appear. Only those that have completed the
    requirements along the path can claim the prize. This system works to
    promote the social aspect that Sigil Games is going for; along the way,
    if this group gets ambushed somehow, any other group that happens to be
    in the area can lend a hand. http://www.gamingexcellence.com/pc/games/379/preview.shtml

    The guy compares Vanguard to Guild Wars which makes no sense to me. Yet the idea seems like it would fix the camping problem.




    That could work... still doesn't eliminate the lack of immersion that 100's of players wandering around in the same "hard to find ultra dangerous nobody ever comes out of it alive" dungeon you're supposedly invading bravely, however.   But yes, sounds like it would work to solve the camping aspect of it....

    Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
    Sig image Pending
    Still in: A couple Betas

  • JorevJorev Member Posts: 1,500

    I loved EQ1 prior to Planes of Power and it had no instancing at all back then.

    Sure I would get pissed if I wanted a certain drop and it was camped, but sometimes it was an opportunity to work together and meet another player or group of players, sometimes it wasn't because they were pricks, but if I knew there was a chance to get the same drop from another high end mob, I wouldn't be upset about that certain mob being camped, even if it was known that the camped mob in question had a higher percentage drop rate.

    Most players will want to experience all content for the fun of it regardless of wether a specific mob dropped a specific item. As long as the higher end mobs drop good loot, there is a materialistic motivation as well, and if loot tables are shared, there is more flexibility to satisfy different class/character needs. Most of us have participated in dungeon crawls to retreive items that were class/character specific for friends, knowing there would be no reward for ourselves other than helping a friend, which is fine, but shared loot tables would be more equitable.

    Instancing removes any competiton for resources and rewards and floods the market which creates inflation and devalues those items. That is a serious problem. It is both reasonable and healthy to have a certain amount of competition for rewards and resources, in order to maintain their value in the economy and to keep the experience of earning something real and special. Instancing cheapens the experience by allowing you to summon a protected enclosure over and over again thus making it both unrealistic and the outcome predictable.

    image
    "We feel gold selling and websites that promote it damage games like Vanguard and will do everything possible to combat it."
    Brad McQuaid
    Chairman & CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
    Executive Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
    www.vanguardsoh

  • PantasticPantastic Member Posts: 1,204


    Originally posted by Jorev
    I find it amazing that the single most popular defense of instancing is to remove spawn camping.
    That just proves that instancing is a developer's lazy way of dealing with the issue and that players who prefer instancing really don't like MMOGs. That's fine, but just admit that games that are heavily instanced are not true MMOGs.

    You're got that MMO brain damage, I see. People who don't like a moronic, non-immersive aspect of some current MMOGs do not neccesarily dislike MMOGs in general. And not wanting a mornic, non-immersive aspect


    If you don't want to share the game world with other people, which realistically will include some competition for resources and rewards, as it should be,

    The thing people like you refuse to acknowledge is that people don't want STUPID competition with other players. "Quickly! let's see who can click on that mob first when it appears!" "Alright, now we'll see who can wait for longer in this one spot for this mob to appear."



    You will never see killstealing if the person who makes first contact has looting rights. This is a no-brainer.

    Instead you get an excellent competition of 'who can click on the mob first', which actualy gets won by the person using a bot to autohit the mob. And people who sit around just to tag whatever mob someone else wants.

    And wait - this sounds like you don't want to share the game world with other people, which will realisitically include some competition for resources and rewards, as it should be, in spite of what you said earlier. Why should you get to loot it for free, wouldn't it be more realisitic if, after weakening yourself fighting the dragon, the people who snuck up during your fight came in and kiled your weakened party and took the loot for themselves? Sounds like you don't want a true MMO.


    If your arguement is that you came upon a spawn first but hesitated in order to prep

    God forbid that you actually face an opponent tough enough that you need to prepare in an MMO! Just tag the spawn and take your challengeless kill!


    or plan or call your friends over an unrealistic chat channel or worse, a live communication system, to come join you because uber mob has spawned, then too bad, deal with it.

    So you've got a world with wizards hurling fireballs, necromancers magically animating the dead, 50 foot demons and warriors that can take multiple hits from them without dying, people that can run constantly for days without tiring, people that don't actually die but just spawn back at a graveyard and make some kind of a corpse run, pants that make you more intelligent, and monsters that watch you kill through a field of them one by one without responding, but somhow any kind of magical long-distance communitication qualifies as unrealisitc? And your complaint is really foolish in modern or science fiction game; 'the jedi blocking blaster bolts with his lightsaber used a comlink, that's just unrealisitc'.

    Further, it's just silly to use 'that's unrealistic' as an argument when you're talking about an absurdly unrealistic situation to begin with. When you're talking about a creature that was killed, but then magically reappears alive a short while later, and once someone hits it once no one else can take anything off of the body, it's just nuts to complain that someome communicating with their buddies is unrealistic.


    Instancing does more damage to a game's fun and economy by promoting relentless farming.

    According to a declaration by you, however there seems to be a distinct lack of any kind of logical argument behind the statement.

  • JorevJorev Member Posts: 1,500

    I am just going to address the last statement because that is my main complaint about instancing and why it effects me negatively, the rest we can chalk up as a difference in perspective.

    How you can deny that instancing creates inflation and ruins the economy is mind-boggling. The proof is what instancing does. It allows a player to recall a private experience where the loot can be retreived over and over again without competition. It is a limitless cash cow.

    image
    "We feel gold selling and websites that promote it damage games like Vanguard and will do everything possible to combat it."
    Brad McQuaid
    Chairman & CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
    Executive Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
    www.vanguardsoh

  • lomillerlomiller Member Posts: 1,810


    Originally posted by Jorev

    I find it amazing that the single most popular defense of instancing is to remove spawn camping.



    What thread are you reading?  The most common reason given for preferring instances is immersion.  Spawn camping has only entered into it because having to wait in line to camp a spawn is one of the things that destroys the immersion of the game.  

  • JorevJorev Member Posts: 1,500
    How does instancing preserve immersion, if it creates a private experience separate from the game world for just you and friends? You need to explain the logic for me.

    image
    "We feel gold selling and websites that promote it damage games like Vanguard and will do everything possible to combat it."
    Brad McQuaid
    Chairman & CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
    Executive Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
    www.vanguardsoh

  • ross1893ross1893 Member Posts: 47
    Yeah, that is true. But to answer that for Vanguard(which is what I am currently most interested in) I would have to play the game. Or at least wait till the NDA is lifted. From that article though I noticed how he said something about going down a seperate path. Which could mean there would be multiple direction into dungeons. Hopefully they have another mechanism to fight overcrowding in dungeons.




    I havent read through all of his notes. He obviously has thought a lot about this subject. For anyone that cares about Vanguard. I know a lot of people here hate SOE or whatever.

    http://www.bradmcquaid.com/Instancing.htm

    http://www.bradmcquaid.com/Response to Instancing.htm


  • ArielAriel Member UncommonPosts: 33

    Like many of the posters above, I just want a good game.

    Instancing can't be a fixed % for anyone (for or against)...it really depends on the game.
    DDO is 100% instanced with non-random encounters in each instance and no scaling based on party size. I.e., each instance plays exactly the same, each time. Even at higher difficulty level, it is the exact same mobs in the exact same places with higher stats.
    I'm not saying it's a good system, but it almost works for DDO (to the extent that DDO works). Assuming that DDO was the perfect tabletop D&D to PC MMO port, the dungeons would basically all have to be instanced to simulate home D&D play.

    As mentioned, City of Heroes is heavily instanced, but a great instanced game.

    There have been some very successful games before instancing was even invented.

    I think a more accurate poll would be "how much do you like an instanced system?" or something along those lines.



  • nomadiannomadian Member Posts: 3,490
    Heres a question, to those that are against instancing(which is me to an extent), do you think WoW would have worked without instancing? I certainly know it would have PvP wise and that World PvP could have and would have been better, but PvE wise? When there is a lot of people, and that a lot of people are doing instances at any time. I know it was fine with EQ, but there was a lot of zones which made it ok.

  • Parsifal57Parsifal57 Member Posts: 267


    Originally posted by Tithrielle

    Originally posted by baff

    Too many times I would be in missions in areas that would have worked better if instanced (temples castles etc), but instead had to deal with kill stealing and camping and respawning enemies materialising in the middle of the fight for no reason at all.

    So essentially you wanted to play on your own? Third party involvement and respawning enemies are staple factors of MMORPGs.


    If you mean theird party involvement such as kill stealing, spawn camping i'm totally against that and until game companies come up with a way to prevent anti-social behaviour like that 50/50 seems about right if. If they allowed mobs to be tagged so that other people could not leech xp from or raw material nodes such as metals once tagged by someone could not be stolen by other players then perhaps i'd drop the percentage.

     Then of course you then have non instanced encounters with epic level boss who almost always seemed to be camped by uber guilds and pugs have little chance to attempt because of a prior guilds claim, this sort of encounter is just crying out for an instance so that everyone who wants to has a chance i.e. when the  mob is about to spawn a broadcast is made in the zone it would spawn and interested parties enter an instance to fight their own incarnation of the boss.

    You may like to have other people being jerks just because they can be, especially when on PvE environments, but i don't, expecially when there is no PvP alternative. So until game programmers actually put some thought into tapping and large encounters i'm with the 50/50 crowds.
  • PantasticPantastic Member Posts: 1,204


    Originally posted by Jorev
    How you can deny that instancing creates inflation and ruins the economy is mind-boggling. The proof is what instancing does. It allows a player to recall a private experience where the loot can be retreived over and over again without competition. It is a limitless cash cow.

    First off, that's not the claim I disagreed with. You said "Instancing does more damage to a game's fun and economy by promoting relentless farming;" the above doesn't say one word about how instancing promotes "relentless farming," what you wrote above is quite different. I will also note that, as usual on these boards, you neglected to actually explain how inflation "ruins the economy"; a healthy game economy is just not going to be static, especially when the game moves from 'everyone's a newb' times to 'everyone's at cap' times. So I'll just focus on the idea that instancing causes inflation, since that's the only one of your claims you've provided an argument for.

    Your criticism of instancing as a 'limitless cash cow' has two major problems. The biggest one is that instances can be designed to put money into the economy or to take it out, there's nothing inherant in instancing that says you have to make money each time you go into an instance. As a trivial example, if I made an instance where you pay 100 gold for the key get in or the components to summon the demon, and I set the loot tables so that the vendor value of all drops will be less than 50 gold, every time you run that instance you take at least 50 gold out of the economy.

    The other huge problem is that MMOs are filled with 'limitless cash cows'. There are mobs all over the place that drop money and vendor trash that you can retrieve loot from over and over, there are herbs and minerals to be harvested, and quests/missions to complete. Even if a game's instances produce a profit, you can't blame inflation in the game on instances unless the instances are better money producers than other sources. Same thing with running them 'over and over'; it's just not a valid complaint when most of the content in the game can be run repeatedly. And there's inherant about instances that says they can be repeated more quickly than outside content; you can easily have an instance that saves its state for some appropriate period.

    Plus, your use of 'loot' is a bit off. In general, when people camp spawns they're looking for a particular item drop, not a cash drop. Cash drops contribute to inflation, useful item drops contribute to deflation by increasing the supply (econ 101 supply and demand at work here). If I can get all of my gear by going off and fighting for it (especially if the best gear isn't sellable), then the game discourages 'relentless farming' since I will have lesst need to farm cash for anything. Spawn camp games are the ones that seem to encourage 'relenltess farming', since you can't realistically beat someone camping a spot 24/7 and using a macro to get the first tag; you're forced to farm gold to buy the gear from the campers.

  • RemyVorenderRemyVorender Member RarePosts: 3,991
    I like a 80% Open, 20% Instanced mix. As easy and boring as WoW is, it still had the open/instance ratio perfect IMO.

    Joined - July 2004

  • LokimerLokimer Member Posts: 89

    Are we arguing about gear and non persistant quests? How dumb.

    A lot of people say these MMO's are just games, and those same people would call me Loony for saying that some are more than that for me. But i've played my fair share of games from Ultima online, EQ, swg, daoc, you name it(no, I haven't played the lineage titles though :( )

    Most people see me as an Ultima online fanboi, but it's for good reason. I think we coudl learn a lot from Ultima online, even though it was one of the first mmo sucesses, maybe becuase there really weren't any other choices besides Meridian 59. But that game just seemed to work with no instancing, it wasn't a gear dependant game for the most part, people found roleplaying easy to do, and despite 1337's and kiddies, it was a fulfilling game.

    Now I have some crazy views on the RP in MMo's. I feel  that in almost every MMO community and the game itself matter a whole lot, you're Rping, but in a different culture and way than you thought you might. The culture built up around these games have pretty much been destroyed ever since by increasingly different games than the ones we looked up to and fantasized about some 10 years ago, especially with "The industry" coming in and putting subscriber quota's and  demanding immediate revenue. THe problem with mmorpgs is that they have been commercialized. THis happened in the Music scene as well, everything once underground has been made popular for exploitation.

    im gonna end here, and update when I get home from work.

  • DamonVileDamonVile Member UncommonPosts: 4,818


    Originally posted by Jorev
    How does instancing preserve immersion, if it creates a private experience separate from the game world for just you and friends? You need to explain the logic for me.

    I thnk the problem here is, what you call immersion isn't really a factor to most of us. Seeing a load screen isn't a big deal. The break in immersion for me ( us ) is not being able to do a dungeon because it's full of other people.

    This is one of those things that people just wont agree on. you're not wrong and we're not wrong. We just look for different things in a game.
  • PantasticPantastic Member Posts: 1,204


    Originally posted by Jorev
    How does instancing preserve immersion, if it creates a private experience separate from the game world for just you and friends? You need to explain the logic for me.

    You're using immersion to mean something like 'seamless world' or 'no load screens', while other people are using it to mean 'gives the impression of being in an actual world instead of a game'.

  • BladinBladin Member UncommonPosts: 1,089
    I've played enough mmorpgs to know that this is arguement is downright silly.

    First off Immersion,

    Picturing some grand open world, where you run into fellow adventurers and team up and go on grand adventures.  Always seeing people running along.  Bzzt wrong.

    Heres how it really works.

    A. Grindy group based games(which is what vanguard sounds to me...) You stand around town or another common hub, constantly shouting/looking for a team to go to a certain areas to kill.  Once you get your team together you go... grind/kill/quest.  You run into other people, you compete for spawns, you bitch and moan that they are taking your kills, or taking your bosses. 

    Meanwhile your running around the same areas of the cave because those are the "sweet spots" or there are bosses spawn points around the area.  You rarely stop to chat with other people, and could for all intents and purposes just be npcs, and you'd never know.  Occasionally a member drops and you shout for a replacement, if you can't find anyone, then its time to go to the /whos to find another member.  Either that or fall apart.  You only explore a area once.. then it turns into farming.  Oh don't forget the arguements between teams over OMGZ YOU STOLE OUR KILLZ, because thats quite common.

    You can also go from camp-camp in this situation, but thats not really exploration, and often times leaving a camp another team may hop into the place.

    B. Questy soloish type content(think AA or WoW), you run around kill things do quests, you see other people running around but unless you need help you generally don't talk to/greet them(exceptions are asking for directions or information).  You may need a little help so if you see someone you ask for help with the quest, they will agree/disagree, and after the jobs done you generally split up.  Alot of frustration involved from people taking the mobs you need, or getting the chest/node/boss you were aiming for.

    --
    Thats the truth of the situation.  Put your grand ideals and happy colored rainbows aside.   1/1000th of mmorpg players roleplay on non roleplay servers.  and rp servers are normally only 10-30% of the total servers.  "immersion" is just a excuse to give your preference more credibility.

    Does anyone here honestly think that you go out into the world by yourself and wind up with a full team gathered from people you just met along the way to your destination?  It honestly is a very rare occurance, the closest thing is taking a non-full but still functional team to a location and stragglers of disbanded groups join up with you(provided they are the right type of character, just thank interdependance for that).  It's no different for your full team to head to a cave and start adventuring in it and getting frustrated by other teams which you honestly don't interact with besides animosity(spelling), and taking that same team to the cave and doing the stuff inside the cave without running into other groups(which you honestly DONT want to do anyway, i have never seen someone go "oh boy i hope we run into other groups down there").

    Both are valid systems to a mmorpg, neither are better, they are just different.  To me though?  I honestly perfer a 50/50.

    And to everyone going "WELL GO PLAY A LAN GAME WITH YOUR BUDDIES 1111!!111ONE" seriously, your very very very dumb. VERY dumb.


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  • Rayx0rRayx0r Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 2,902

    instancing is a feature that, if used well, gives the subscriber a sense of being the protaganist. 

    it greatly improves "my" immersion during quests and different situations.

    the guy above me, I agree 100%. however I dont think I could give a specific percentage on how much instancing I like.

    I like instancing when its used to put me into the story. 

    camping and waiting in line to assassinate a named mob, this should never exist in a true roleplaying game.  neither should crossing the path of an important mob (named) that you slayed previously.

    instancing is slowly evolving into something where players can finally feel important, and quests/objectives will feel complete once the player has finished their quest.  its all in how the developers incorporate instancing.

    some of you think very shallow when it comes to the possibilities of game instancing.

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    “"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a robot foot stomping on a human face -- forever."
  • nomadiannomadian Member Posts: 3,490
    I think the moment you add 'instancing' to a world, you turn the world into a game. The compromise is do you want a believable world? or do you want a game whereby everything is set out for you, rather than you adapting to the world. Yes, I believe, instancing can be good in games, but I also think had EQ had had multiple surefall glades, multiple Blackburrows, multiple freeports, Qeynos' I don't think I would have enjoyed it anywhere near as I did.

  • PantasticPantastic Member Posts: 1,204

    I think that the moment you add respawning bosses and players lined up waiting to tag them for their turn at getting an item, you turn what might have been a believeable world into a game. I can ignore respawns, but not when I have to get into line with other people to wait for one. I can ignore that I'm only temporarily incapacitating the leader of the orcs if I fight my way to him, kill him, and fight out, but not if I fight in, see another group, wait for them to finish, stand around until the leader magically reappears, then kill him myself.

    And don't even get me started on the half-assed 'competition'; if you want to compete with other players for spawns, you should really compete with them by having full PVP combat, and should have the risk that you kill the mob but another group kills you while you're weak and loots the body. You can't sensible talk about how people who don't like spawn camping silliness want a world where "everything is set out for you" and boast about "adapting to the world" when you aren't willing to seriously compete for a spawn with other players and prefer some silly queue or whack-a-mole to tag it first.

  • nomadiannomadian Member Posts: 3,490



    I think that the moment you add respawning bosses and players lined up waiting to tag them for their turn at getting an item, you turn what might have been a believeable world into a game. I can ignore respawns, but not when I have to get into line with other people to wait for one.
    How far do you want to stretch a belivable world? I think 'one location' is much better to an authentic world than multiple areas of the same location.



    I can ignore that I'm only temporarily incapacitating the leader of the orcs if I fight my way to him, kill him, and fight out, but not if I fight in, see another group, wait for them to finish, stand around until the leader magically reappears, then kill him myself.
    So in WoW's noninstanced content you encountered lots of problems? I didn't have any quibbles with its non instanced content. I think people look at the bad bits and seriously overdramatize.



    And don't even get me started on the half-assed 'competition'; if you want to compete with other players for spawns, you should really compete with them by having full PVP combat, and should have the risk that you kill the mob but another group kills you while you're weak and loots the body. You can't sensible talk about how people who don't like spawn camping silliness want a world where "everything is set out for you" and boast about "adapting to the world" when you aren't willing to seriously compete for a spawn with other players and prefer some silly queue or whack-a-mole to tag it first.
    I've not even mentioned competition, however, 'competing for spawns' PvP wise wouldn't be bad though probably more suited to a Pvp game like Warhammer which I am looking forward to. And my 'adapting to the world' was hardly a boast, all I'm saying is with instancing you give the game a different feel. You just need to look at DDO, EQ2, Guild Wars, EQ Ldon to prove that.
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