The fact that EQ didn't have it during the classic era really isn't a valid argument as to why this game shouldn't have it. This game isn't EQ. EQ like, sure, but it is not and should not be a clone.
I loved a lot of things about EQ. But I also remember there being 80 people in Lower Guk, 80 people in Sebilis, 200 people in ToV, etc. I remember Sebilis being so crowded that even the zone in and zone out were camps. The server I played on was so crowded at one point that they actually did a server split on to a new server, but that didn't do much to deal with overcrowding in the popular areas.
I've played a number of games that have sharding of zones, and for the most part it works pretty well. Typically only the most popular zones end up getting split after the initial rush. Ideally I would certainly prefer everything be open and have a single copy. Ideally I'd also prefer there not be zones. But the simple fact is things will always get crowded during peak times. You can't just split the server because then it might be dead during off hours.
letsdance said:NoobieDoo said:Second, Kilsin and the other devs have stated that there will be NO instancing accept on rare occasions. Meaning the traditional type of instancing being used in modern MMOs today such as how WoW and Rift and etcthe problem is, when i read "there will be NO instancing except on rare occasions" i thought that there would be no instancing except on rare occasions. this did not seem a far off guess or possible missinterpretation! i assume most others thought the same. i did not expect it to mean "there will be no instancing in the traditional type as being used in modern MMOs".as i have said in another thread, i'm not totally opposed to zone copying, but i think it would hurt more than help. if there's a fixed number of copies (like, 1), that would mitigate the issue, but it's still not the same. in EQ, when i've been in a dungeon for a while, i used to know the people. sometimes you had the camp that you wanted and sometimes you didn't, and took whatever you could get. if all dungeons exist in sufficent copies to make everyone happy, that means i could spend weeks in the "same" dungeon as someone else and never even hear of him. and most of the dungeon will be empty most of the time, except for the most desired camps. i consider that boring, and that's the tradeoff you get for trying to make everyone happy. also, zone copying is really just a workaround to substitute for a lack of content. EQ did fine after velious release.
VR state repeatedly in their FAQ (9.0, 10.1., 20.2) that their way to counter crowding was a large world and a sufficient amount of servers. so this is what i expect to be the solution. not cheap zone copies. as easier it is to get your desired equipment, the less of an achievement it is. i don't remember where, but their philosphy was that getting the right items should be challenging and rewarding.
NoobieDoo said: Also, in EQ1 iirc every zone throughout the entire game has this type of shardingoriginal EQ, which many here are hoping to see some sort of remake of, did not have any type of instancing, zone copying or sharding.
First, let me say, PRF may never need to use sharding at all. The type of sharding they may use will most likely be similar to how APW was sharded in Vanguard. I think one of the big reasons why APW was 'sharded' at all was because of the time of its release. By the time APW, the first raid zone in VG, was released many many people were of level to begin raiding. It was the ONLY raid zone and if you weren't already high enough level to raid it you soon would be. I think if APW would have been released before anybody was high enough level to reach it it possibly may have not even needed to be sharded. But who knows...
I know vanilla EQ had no instancing or sharding. I'm not discussing EQ at all. I am talking about the differences of how Pantheon will use sharding to how it was used in other games. Some have concern that Pantheon will use it similar to how WoW instances their dungeons and/or raid zones while others have concern it will use sharding similar to how they protect against over populated zones, and I am simply trying to explain how PRF will not shard like those games.
And I agree with you, I'd prefer no copies of zones. BUT, if used sparingly and only in specific situations such as how it was used in VG then I'd be fine with it.
NoobieDoo said:letsdance said:NoobieDoo said:Second, Kilsin and the other devs have stated that there will be NO instancing accept on rare occasions. Meaning the traditional type of instancing being used in modern MMOs today such as how WoW and Rift and etcthe problem is, when i read "there will be NO instancing except on rare occasions" i thought that there would be no instancing except on rare occasions. this did not seem a far off guess or possible missinterpretation! i assume most others thought the same. i did not expect it to mean "there will be no instancing in the traditional type as being used in modern MMOs".as i have said in another thread, i'm not totally opposed to zone copying, but i think it would hurt more than help. if there's a fixed number of copies (like, 1), that would mitigate the issue, but it's still not the same. in EQ, when i've been in a dungeon for a while, i used to know the people. sometimes you had the camp that you wanted and sometimes you didn't, and took whatever you could get. if all dungeons exist in sufficent copies to make everyone happy, that means i could spend weeks in the "same" dungeon as someone else and never even hear of him. and most of the dungeon will be empty most of the time, except for the most desired camps. i consider that boring, and that's the tradeoff you get for trying to make everyone happy. also, zone copying is really just a workaround to substitute for a lack of content. EQ did fine after velious release.
VR state repeatedly in their FAQ (9.0, 10.1., 20.2) that their way to counter crowding was a large world and a sufficient amount of servers. so this is what i expect to be the solution. not cheap zone copies. as easier it is to get your desired equipment, the less of an achievement it is. i don't remember where, but their philosphy was that getting the right items should be challenging and rewarding.
NoobieDoo said: Also, in EQ1 iirc every zone throughout the entire game has this type of shardingoriginal EQ, which many here are hoping to see some sort of remake of, did not have any type of instancing, zone copying or sharding.First, let me say, PRF may never need to use sharding at all. The type of sharding they may use will most likely be similar to how APW was sharded in Vanguard. I think one of the big reasons why APW was 'sharded' at all was because of the time of its release. By the time APW, the first raid zone in VG, was released many many people were of level to begin raiding. It was the ONLY raid zone and if you weren't already high enough level to raid it you soon would be. I think if APW would have been released before anybody was high enough level to reach it it possibly may have not even needed to be sharded. But who knows...
I know vanilla EQ had no instancing or sharding. I'm not discussing EQ at all. I am talking about the differences of how Pantheon will use sharding to how it was used in other games. Some have concern that Pantheon will use it similar to how WoW instances their dungeons and/or raid zones while others have concern it will use sharding similar to how they protect against over populated zones, and I am simply trying to explain how PRF will not shard like those games.
And I agree with you, I'd prefer no copies of zones. BUT, if used sparingly and only in specific situations such as how it was used in VG then I'd be fine with it.
So basically, they really screwed up, for reasons in and out of their control, and had to employ that kind of system because they had no choice. Understandable. This is not that.
Krixus said:NoobieDoo said:letsdance said:NoobieDoo said:Second, Kilsin and the other devs have stated that there will be NO instancing accept on rare occasions. Meaning the traditional type of instancing being used in modern MMOs today such as how WoW and Rift and etcthe problem is, when i read "there will be NO instancing except on rare occasions" i thought that there would be no instancing except on rare occasions. this did not seem a far off guess or possible missinterpretation! i assume most others thought the same. i did not expect it to mean "there will be no instancing in the traditional type as being used in modern MMOs".as i have said in another thread, i'm not totally opposed to zone copying, but i think it would hurt more than help. if there's a fixed number of copies (like, 1), that would mitigate the issue, but it's still not the same. in EQ, when i've been in a dungeon for a while, i used to know the people. sometimes you had the camp that you wanted and sometimes you didn't, and took whatever you could get. if all dungeons exist in sufficent copies to make everyone happy, that means i could spend weeks in the "same" dungeon as someone else and never even hear of him. and most of the dungeon will be empty most of the time, except for the most desired camps. i consider that boring, and that's the tradeoff you get for trying to make everyone happy. also, zone copying is really just a workaround to substitute for a lack of content. EQ did fine after velious release.
VR state repeatedly in their FAQ (9.0, 10.1., 20.2) that their way to counter crowding was a large world and a sufficient amount of servers. so this is what i expect to be the solution. not cheap zone copies. as easier it is to get your desired equipment, the less of an achievement it is. i don't remember where, but their philosphy was that getting the right items should be challenging and rewarding.
NoobieDoo said: Also, in EQ1 iirc every zone throughout the entire game has this type of shardingoriginal EQ, which many here are hoping to see some sort of remake of, did not have any type of instancing, zone copying or sharding.First, let me say, PRF may never need to use sharding at all. The type of sharding they may use will most likely be similar to how APW was sharded in Vanguard. I think one of the big reasons why APW was 'sharded' at all was because of the time of its release. By the time APW, the first raid zone in VG, was released many many people were of level to begin raiding. It was the ONLY raid zone and if you weren't already high enough level to raid it you soon would be. I think if APW would have been released before anybody was high enough level to reach it it possibly may have not even needed to be sharded. But who knows...
I know vanilla EQ had no instancing or sharding. I'm not discussing EQ at all. I am talking about the differences of how Pantheon will use sharding to how it was used in other games. Some have concern that Pantheon will use it similar to how WoW instances their dungeons and/or raid zones while others have concern it will use sharding similar to how they protect against over populated zones, and I am simply trying to explain how PRF will not shard like those games.
And I agree with you, I'd prefer no copies of zones. BUT, if used sparingly and only in specific situations such as how it was used in VG then I'd be fine with it.
So basically, they really screwed up, for reasons in and out of their control, and had to employ that kind of system because they had no choice. Understandable. This is not that.
You like to hear yourself talk (type) don't ya lol because I literally JUST said that.
This post wasn't to support sharding people. The 'topic line' says sharding vs instancing not why PRF should have sharding. Whether you, or I, or anybody else believe PRF should or should not have sharding doesn't matter here because it isn't the purpose or intent of this thread. Hopefully we can get this thread back on track. Good day to you all.
NoobieDoo said:Krixus said:NoobieDoo said:letsdance said:NoobieDoo said:Second, Kilsin and the other devs have stated that there will be NO instancing accept on rare occasions. Meaning the traditional type of instancing being used in modern MMOs today such as how WoW and Rift and etcthe problem is, when i read "there will be NO instancing except on rare occasions" i thought that there would be no instancing except on rare occasions. this did not seem a far off guess or possible missinterpretation! i assume most others thought the same. i did not expect it to mean "there will be no instancing in the traditional type as being used in modern MMOs".as i have said in another thread, i'm not totally opposed to zone copying, but i think it would hurt more than help. if there's a fixed number of copies (like, 1), that would mitigate the issue, but it's still not the same. in EQ, when i've been in a dungeon for a while, i used to know the people. sometimes you had the camp that you wanted and sometimes you didn't, and took whatever you could get. if all dungeons exist in sufficent copies to make everyone happy, that means i could spend weeks in the "same" dungeon as someone else and never even hear of him. and most of the dungeon will be empty most of the time, except for the most desired camps. i consider that boring, and that's the tradeoff you get for trying to make everyone happy. also, zone copying is really just a workaround to substitute for a lack of content. EQ did fine after velious release.
VR state repeatedly in their FAQ (9.0, 10.1., 20.2) that their way to counter crowding was a large world and a sufficient amount of servers. so this is what i expect to be the solution. not cheap zone copies. as easier it is to get your desired equipment, the less of an achievement it is. i don't remember where, but their philosphy was that getting the right items should be challenging and rewarding.
NoobieDoo said: Also, in EQ1 iirc every zone throughout the entire game has this type of shardingoriginal EQ, which many here are hoping to see some sort of remake of, did not have any type of instancing, zone copying or sharding.First, let me say, PRF may never need to use sharding at all. The type of sharding they may use will most likely be similar to how APW was sharded in Vanguard. I think one of the big reasons why APW was 'sharded' at all was because of the time of its release. By the time APW, the first raid zone in VG, was released many many people were of level to begin raiding. It was the ONLY raid zone and if you weren't already high enough level to raid it you soon would be. I think if APW would have been released before anybody was high enough level to reach it it possibly may have not even needed to be sharded. But who knows...
I know vanilla EQ had no instancing or sharding. I'm not discussing EQ at all. I am talking about the differences of how Pantheon will use sharding to how it was used in other games. Some have concern that Pantheon will use it similar to how WoW instances their dungeons and/or raid zones while others have concern it will use sharding similar to how they protect against over populated zones, and I am simply trying to explain how PRF will not shard like those games.
And I agree with you, I'd prefer no copies of zones. BUT, if used sparingly and only in specific situations such as how it was used in VG then I'd be fine with it.
So basically, they really screwed up, for reasons in and out of their control, and had to employ that kind of system because they had no choice. Understandable. This is not that.
You like to hear yourself talk (type) don't ya lol because I literally JUST said that.
Oh PLEASE FORGIVE ME for summing something up in my own words that I care about. FFS.
Krixus said:
So basically, they really screwed up, for reasons in and out of their control, and had to employ that kind of system because they had no choice. Understandable. This is not that.
You like to hear yourself talk (type) don't ya lol because I literally JUST said that.
Oh PLEASE FORGIVE ME for summing something up in my own words that I care about. FFS.
All good bro. Just seems like you are talking down to someone when you tell them "this is not that" like I NEEDED to hear that because I didn't understand it when I just clearly stated that I DID understand it. Hard to have grown adult conversations with ppl under these circumstances.
But let's not derail this thread. This thread is to help clarify how sharding will be used in Pantheon ***IF*** sharding is used at all in Pantheon. Whether a person supports it or not doesn't matter here.
Most EQ players these days call them "picks" and it's totally normal to hop into a zone and see nothing is up then to pick over and check another.
The only thing that gates doing this is a 5 min timer.
Every pick has the potential to double the loot that enters the server.
This makes it so the prime spots get camped in more than one pick so less people spread out into some of the more interesting nooks and crannies of the game.
Ultimately although convenient I would have to say this type of a pick system creates more problems than it solves.
Thanks,
Kiz~
Just dropping my 2 cents, there should be no Sharding or instancing (except for rare epic quests for story telling), it's exploitable and I it does not solve the overpopulation.
If VR delivers on what they said, multiple zone options in various different level ranges and no clear/all ocasions BIS items, there will be no problems with overcrowding, because there's allways another zone you can got to and achieve relevant proggression. One thing that players need to accept with this system, some zone will not be available to your group on demand because they're already full, so you'll need to go to another one, or wait for a spot.
snrub said:I remember Sebilis being so crowded that even the zone in and zone out were camps.yes and that's what i'd like to see again. otherwise, why even have a full zone if everyone's just at the king anyways? we could instead reduce the zone to the 3 camps that people want to do, but offer 10 copies of that. oh wait, that's actually what instancing is about...
zone copying is a valid solution if you can't cope with the overcrowding otherwise. that's why it works great for EQ TLP servers. but the goal for a new game should be to avoid the problem in first place. it's good to have a backdoor, but it should not be planned to be neccessary from the beginning.
jpedrote said: ... One thing that players need to accept with this system, some zone will not be available to your group on demand because they're already full, so you'll need to go to another one, or wait for a spot.
Or logout and play a different game. Which is what some/many/most players will do now that it's not 1999 and they have more than one choice.
In other words, no, players don't "need to accept" that. They will simply walk away.
Don't misunderstand, I would love it if there was actually going to be more than 2 or 3 max level zones at launch. I hope zone capacity exceeds demand without sharding/instancing, I'm just skeptical that will be the case.
vjek said:jpedrote said: ... One thing that players need to accept with this system, some zone will not be available to your group on demand because they're already full, so you'll need to go to another one, or wait for a spot.Or logout and play a different game. Which is what some/many/most players will do now that it's not 1999 and they have more than one choice.
In other words, no, players don't "need to accept" that. They will simply walk away.
Don't misunderstand, I would love it if there was actually going to be more than 2 or 3 max level zones at launch. I hope zone capacity exceeds demand without sharding/instancing, I'm just skeptical that will be the case.
Exactly. Also, there is no way they are going to completely eliminate BIS.
So many people going full on "end of the world" over shards. Literally going nuts over the idea that maybe 12 people will be camping a mob instead of 6, in a world of likely 3000+ players. Assuming they do manage to make it so there is no single BIS item, then it's far less of a problem than any other game. Add in augmentation, item sacrifices, and any other means of making an item no-drop/destroyed. So what if they lower the drop or spawn rate if there are more shards? It isn't fair to the first 6 (but I am sure they will still be thrilled to hold the camp) but it's fair to the server as a whole and the economy everyone is concerned about.
vjek said:Or logout and play a different game. Which is what some/many/most players will do now that it's not 1999 and they have more than one choice.
In other words, no, players don't "need to accept" that. They will simply walk away.
Don't misunderstand, I would love it if there was actually going to be more than 2 or 3 max level zones at launch. I hope zone capacity exceeds demand without sharding/instancing, I'm just skeptical that will be the case.
There's no other game like Pantheon out there, so they would indeed need to play a different game.
Just because players don't get to experience a sepecific zone on demand doens't mean they stop proggression, or that they will enjoy the game less, this is just another factor of the player interaction the game is based upon, a camp spot or zone being unavailable because other players already filled the zone seems like a normal thing in an open world game, and if there are indeed zone multiple options for all level ranges (wich i believe there will be) then there's no problem.
As for the Max level zones, I'm certain there will be more than 3, remember that a lot of high level content will be inserted in low-mid level zones, so there's no reason to not have a lot of high level content. High/Top level raiding won't really be a problem because not many players will be that far in proggression to actually experience the content near the launch, in a 4000 players server only 3-5% of players are actually raiding cutting edge ultra hard content, and that around 150-200 players, that's equal to 3-4 guilds, to me that seems fair competion and not much of an overcrowding/camping scene.
Of course if there are major problems with overcrowding/camping, and a solution cannot be found, bring in the sharding/instancing, above all I want the game to be enjoyable.
philo said:It might be better to not use the term shard. What is being referred to as a "shard" is duplicating a zone. Calling that a shard is not the definition that most old school gamers think of when using that term.
Seems like a simpler solution to not use the term than having to redefine the word shard everytime it is brought up.
This post quoted is actually also totally inaccurate.
Sharding is a term used in database administration. The fact that it impacts players in games having to reside in different DB shards is a result of having to shard databases.
A database shard is a horizontal partition of data in adatabase or search engine. Each individual partition is referred to as a shard or database shard. Each shard is held on a separate database server instance, to spread load.
I'm abivalent over the issue of sharding, but tend to be okay with it if it prevents some of the crap we had to deal with back in the day.
Picture day 1 of go live. Literally 100s of newbies in each of the low level zones outside the 4 starting cities. Garter snakes are hiding in their tunnels underground, because as soon as they pop their head up, some noob is waiting to cut it off with a rusty dagger! Crowds of players camping above piles of dead rats because there are more players in the zone than mob spawns. The players have nowhere to spread out to, because there's only so much content for levels 1-5. Pissed off players on free trials, who just want to play the game get frustrated and leave, uninstalling, and there goes VR's chance of attracting players other than the diehards who have been playing the genre since 1999.
Overcrowding means more customer support issues due to players being asses: training other groups to camp jump, fighting over spawns, etc. It means bigger headaches and less satisfied customers, and if the biggest downside to the alternative is 2 or 3 flowing black silk sashes entering the economy every ~8-12 hours, instead of 1, that's the option I'd choose. If the economy/item scarcity is a real issue, they could just add code to the loot/encounter handlers which queries how many shards of Zone X is active, and divides the % spawn chances for nameds or the rare drop % rate by the number of active shards. This would also reward the players fighting in those less crowded areas with more loot than those overpopulating a zone to force a 4th shard to camp item X.
NoobieDoo said:First, let me say, PRF may never need to use sharding at all. The type of sharding they may use will most likely be similar to how APW was sharded in Vanguard. I think one of the big reasons why APW was 'sharded' at all was because of the time of its release. By the time APW, the first raid zone in VG, was released many many people were of level to begin raiding. It was the ONLY raid zone and if you weren't already high enough level to raid it you soon would be. I think if APW would have been released before anybody was high enough level to reach it it possibly may have not even needed to be sharded. But who knows...
I know vanilla EQ had no instancing or sharding. I'm not discussing EQ at all. I am talking about the differences of how Pantheon will use sharding to how it was used in other games. Some have concern that Pantheon will use it similar to how WoW instances their dungeons and/or raid zones while others have concern it will use sharding similar to how they protect against over populated zones, and I am simply trying to explain how PRF will not shard like those games.
And I agree with you, I'd prefer no copies of zones. BUT, if used sparingly and only in specific situations such as how it was used in VG then I'd be fine with it.
Call it what you want, but APW was instanced. It may not have been an instance of a zone, but it was certainly instances of mobs. That is half the problem with instancing (the other being fragmenting players and the world), and not a valid solution, imo.
zewtastic said:philo said:It might be better to not use the term shard. What is being referred to as a "shard" is duplicating a zone. Calling that a shard is not the definition that most old school gamers think of when using that term.
Seems like a simpler solution to not use the term than having to redefine the word shard everytime it is brought up.
This post quoted is actually also totally inaccurate.
Sharding is a term used in database administration. The fact that it impacts players in games having to reside in different DB shards is a result of having to shard databases.
A database shard is a horizontal partition of data in adatabase or search engine. Each individual partition is referred to as a shard or database shard. Each shard is held on a separate database server instance, to spread load.
This is correct and that is how APW ion VG was handled, that is how we would consider handling some of our dungeons if overcrowding becomes a problem, instead of instancing.
Confusingly enough, Shards can also be used to describe a Server, so everyone expressing their opinions and preferences is not helping the situation and actually making it more confusing for people to understand.
We are discussing what we will use, so far this is what it will most likely be:
Servers:
Server or Realm
Dungeon Clone/Copy:
Shard or Mirror
In saying that, I will now need to close this thread as it has run its course and I have answered this question, plus we already have multiple active threads on this topic which also have official replies.