Wellspring said:
Thakorr said:
Just because you choose not to buy something doesn't mean it still isn't the current reality. You can take a hard line approach to instanced content all day long, but at the end of the day it's still what people are making and buying right now.
Obviously we don't know entirely what direction the game is going to go yet but it is entirely possible that they try and find a happy medium between the two.
Most of Pantheon's target audience are players who do not like the "current reality" in MMOs. Otherwise, they wouldn't be here, but instead happily playing one of the games already released. The reason to support Pantheon is because it is game that is bringing back the MMORPG roots which helped make the genre great.
Just because developers are using instances and players are buying their games, does not a good feature make.
More than that, outside of WoW, modern MMOs don't really have a leg to stand on from a success standpoint. They just aren't doing well. How many AAA MMOs have you heard announced recently? That number is zero, at least from the west. The reason its zero is because they are spending hundreds of millions to create a game based around convenience and then they lose half their playerbase before they even make the initial investment back. Thats risky business, and really shows if nothing else, that the current design being used to make mmos is not a sustainable one.
The time is right for Pantheon to show people that an mmorpg is more than just a game, but a virtual world that can fascinate and offer long-term enjoyment.
Thakorr said:
Just because you choose not to buy something doesn't mean it still isn't the current reality. You can take a hard line approach to instanced content all day long, but at the end of the day it's still what people are making and buying right now.
There's something circular in that logic, friend. It is what people buy because it is all that is available. It is all that is available because someone like you goes on the boards of every new game and lobbies for them. The end result is to deny anyone the chance to see if they might prefer a game without instances.
Instances have become a crutch for MMOs for the simple reason that instanced dungeons are cheaper / faster to make.
Which do you think is easier for an MMO designer to make?
***
Dungeon 1:
Sprawling dungeon, usually with more than one level and a half dozen areas suitable for camping with a group. Groups fight into a location and hold it.
Dungeon 2:
Small dungeon that supports one group following a linear path. The dungeon is instanced and players constantly move to give the illusion of size.
***
The sad fact is that most MMO's would rather create 10 "Junk Food" dungeons, than one Sebilis.
Easily taken care of if you have a dynamic spawning mechanism that can help alleviate areas of high congestion. You don't want to completely remove competition for resources or content, but you don't want people to be able to block access by camping / stealing everything in sight whether they are higher levels or have greater numbers of people in their party. Camping was a double edged sword in EQ and I remember it both fondly and hatefully.
Thakorr said:
Just because you choose not to buy something doesn't mean it still isn't the current reality. You can take a hard line approach to instanced content all day long, but at the end of the day it's still what people are making and buying right now.
Obviously we don't know entirely what direction the game is going to go yet but it is entirely possible that they try and find a happy medium between the two.
Thakorr, I understand what you are saying. Though what I'm saying is that if more people stood up for what they want instead of just giving in... that wouldn't be the reality we have to face. And that's with anything. If no one bought bottled water... no one would make bottled water.
Hey, I know I'm a little late to the party here, but I wanted to put in my 2 cents on this topic and that is that I feel instances cheapen and water down the MMO experience.
Instances essentially take what is supposed to be a very social game - an MMO - and attempt to isolate the players from each other. The most important thing in an MMO in my opinion is the community, and instanced content actively reduces the amount of player interaction. If you look at WoW, you press a button, get teleported to an instance with 4 people you have never met before and will very likely never meet again, complete the dungeon, and teleport out. You might as well be playing a single-player game with chat-roulette attached to it. Moreover, this system discourages any sense of responsibility or community, so there's little incentive to not be a dick or drop out of group early other than penalties imposed by the hand of God. On the other hand, the organic method of grouping and dungeon-grinding from EQ strengthened the community, and players were more likely to play responsibly else they risked their reputation amongst said community.
I feel WoW only further isolated the players in their newest expansion when they introduced Garrisons. Now, players don't even interact with each other in cities - you just sit in your instanced garrison, farm your minerals or herbs at your garrison, queue for single-serving raid instances from your garrison, and in general never have to really make friends or bonds with anyone. They've essentially turned that game into Farmville on Facebook.
In the history of MMOs, from EQ 1 on, each step that added convenience, removed something that makes the game memorable.
Automated vendors/bazaars/auction houses == no personal interaction in trading
Automated porting to dungeon when you queue up == no travel, no people to travel with, no people that port you, no environment of any kind
Instanced dungeons = no other people except your little group. No interaction. Heck, even bad interaction, as in, someone that trains you, is better than being in your isolated bubble IMO.
Tiny, linear, easy to understand dungeons == no sense of wonder, or of fear, or awe, or anything. Just go and slay till you get to the end.
It becomes like Diablo online, you and a few random others, in random-generated dungeon, and not a single instance of that is anything to write home about.
If I wanted that, I would have been playing that.
I'm here - as most of us are - to play something along the lines of original MMOs, of EQ 1 and Vanguard.
I am against instancing but it really is a necessary evil now. Lot's more people playing these types of games then their used to be.
However a few simple solutions to keep a lot of things un instanced.
The biggest problem with un-instanced is non stop bots spawning bosses. Well what if boss spawns had requirements and were in rooms that people could look into but be warped out of if they were not part of the group that met the requirements. Perfect world did this well. In order to spawn a lot of bosses puzzle pieces needed to be collected from all over and assembled. The finished item would spawn the boss. If you were not part of the group you would then be warped away from the boss spawn location and unable to enter.
If done like this you could control loot in 1 of 2 ways.
First determine how often boss would have spawned in a day / week / month etc. If it should spawn 5x a day then make the rarest puzzle piece drop 5x/day with the rarity slowly decreasing as the server got closer to the daily time frame. Also set a time limit on piece usage to avoid hoarding.
The other option is to make the requirements to spawn said boss very easy but make the loot from the boss extremely rare.
Actually a third option would just be to make the puzzle piece extremely rare.
Now it doesn't have to be "puzzle pieces" that is just a plug. It could be hitting certain points inside of the dungeon or collecting different items or killing 1000x orcs etc.
This is one of the bullet points from the "Game Features" section of the "Game Summary" page.
Terminus is a world where instancing is the exception not the rule.
I'm not sure how much this has changed since the earliest iterations of production but I have a feeling this will generally still hold true. Hopefully this clarifies for anyone that was unsure. I think it also can help to focus this discussion. If instancing is used sparingly, as this point suggests, what does that paradigm look like? How does it influence the core mechanics of the world? Is this a tenant that you take exception with? Or does this satisfy both sides of the discussion?
I'm interested to know what you all think.
Prominus said:
I am against instancing but it really is a necessary evil now. Lot's more people playing these types of games then their used to be.
However a few simple solutions to keep a lot of things un instanced.
The biggest problem with un-instanced is non stop bots spawning bosses. Well what if boss spawns had requirements and were in rooms that people could look into but be warped out of if they were not part of the group that met the requirements. Perfect world did this well. In order to spawn a lot of bosses puzzle pieces needed to be collected from all over and assembled. The finished item would spawn the boss. If you were not part of the group you would then be warped away from the boss spawn location and unable to enter.
If done like this you could control loot in 1 of 2 ways.
First determine how often boss would have spawned in a day / week / month etc. If it should spawn 5x a day then make the rarest puzzle piece drop 5x/day with the rarity slowly decreasing as the server got closer to the daily time frame. Also set a time limit on piece usage to avoid hoarding.
The other option is to make the requirements to spawn said boss very easy but make the loot from the boss extremely rare.
Actually a third option would just be to make the puzzle piece extremely rare.
Now it doesn't have to be "puzzle pieces" that is just a plug. It could be hitting certain points inside of the dungeon or collecting different items or killing 1000x orcs etc.
Those are some solid ideas, but its not absolutely necessary to instance if you build your world right. The solutions are more content, harder content, and when its still too crowded, more servers. It worked fine in EQ and there is no reason it wouldn't work again.
Modern MMOs worlds are mostly small or insignificant in that you burn through the quests or content in an area and never return. Then they are built on megaservers to automatically instance areas. Beyond that, because the game itself is linear and the only long term challenge is grinding "end game" dungeons, everyone is doing the same content which obviously couldn't be contested. However, when the entire world is more challenging and full of long term content for a variety of level ranges, everyone isn't max level at the same time and in need of the same content.
No to private instancing. Open world dungeons, and treat it like how EQ2 just had to do with the TLE servers. Have say a cap at 40-60 people in the open world dungeon a new one opens up. This still gives the feeling to community while preventing zone flood.
I hope this goes more along the lines of Vanguard where there were just several different dungeons around each level that were literally ******* massive. You could have several full groups of people in KE in Vanguard and not see the other one. Then not to mention each continent had its own version of that. It was fantastic and you never really felt cramped.
I am a non instance fan as much as possible. I hate how games like wow where the social aspect of the game is gone and people just blow through dungeons as fast as possible. I am guilty of it because that is the pulse of the game. Bring back non instance content. Bring back group farming/camping mobs for loot and exp. Instancing was used heavily to handle over crowding and but it also takes away from the bumping into others in the world aspect. In my opinion if you want instanced content right now when ever you want it perhaps you should play solo games.
I have commented on this here before (in a different topic) but I am not at all against use of instancing when it is done right. Generally that means that the vast majority of things are not instanced. However there are some things that work better when instanced, the main thing that comes to mind is anything heavily story based. An example I can give is really any of the final fights in the ffxi missions (missions are a long string of story driven events that encompass a large variety of things from open world to instanced but have a story line and cutscenes). These were instanced fights for your group that for me were of a comparable quality to a well put together boss fight from a single player game, it offered a very different and differently rewarding experience from the still epic but non-instanced content. I think that both of them have their place as long as it is handled well and instancing is used sparingly.
I don't like instancing. I'm fine with competition because sometimes that's part of the fun. But I do understand that there are certain scenarios where instancing is unavoidable. For example, your game may offer expensive, non-instanced player housing. However, there will be limited amount of plots available with many more players wanting a place to call home. A lower priced solution may be instanced apartments/rented rooms in a big city building.
Another aspect is what I'll term "live instancing" where certain types of content will spawn for specific groups, like mentioned in VG. I'm comfortable with that.
Mixture of both, but non-instanced favored over instanced, else the game feels like a single player console title.
The nice thing about instancing is that it gives the game mission/quick task content for solo and group. In any game that has grouping as its core foundational belief, there should be stuff the solo player can do while waiting for groups. Instanced tasks are great for that. There's always something to do, there's always a way to move the xp bar any time you log in, and there's fewer reasons to say "eff this, I am sick of logging in and being blocked from playing." Plus, a ton of stuff can put into a smaller amount of real estate.
But the game should have way more non-instanced content for sure. Open FFA dungeons, outdoor environments, FA hunting/leveling zones and content, etc.
I'm part of the small minority in this community who has never played EQ (gasp!), and I just wanted to say this thread was a very interesting read. I've never really experienced any non-instanced type of dungeon/raid, and from my limited knowledge of said content has me kind of afraid of the unknown so to speak, but after reading all the discussion (at least from this thread) it has me excited to experience it.
I can't really contribute, but just wanted to thank you all for the insightful discussion and perspectives! Reading this thread has brought me from apprehension to excitement! :D
Sorry to necro,
Rachael
I am not a fan of instancing and am generally against it in most cases. However, I kind of like how the EQ TLP server is doing it (dont know if it's game wide). Take lower guk, that place can get PACKED and some of you may remember way back, when groups would be fighting over a handful of spawns etc etc. TLP now breaks off into what they call "picks", so when lguk gets filled up to the point where it's crowded but not frustratingly so, a new instance of the dungeon opens allowing groups to go there. Not sure how many times the game will do this but there were 5 picks for lguk last night by the time I logged off, 100's of players doing the content that w/o the picks they coulnt have done.
I dont feel particularly impacted by that scenario, the only drawback I see being if more "phat lewts" hit the world, faster, which may have a negative impact on server economy in the future.
Instancing is cancer. Sharded zones can be nice (like APW), but not instances. Would be cool if overpopulated zones would potentially spawn a duplicate copy of that zone to allow more people to access the same content at the same time. Bonus points if you can freely swap between the two copies of the zone.
This effectively keeps things "open world", but prevents situations where you literally can not access content due to overwhelming consumption. Add lockout timers for raid encounters to prevent people exploiting this for extra raid kills on the same mob and you're golden.
I think instancing was perfect for a game like DDO, but I wouldn't consider that an MMORPG, it was a MORPG. I think too many games are getting the MMORPG label when in reality they are an online game with an in game hub and some arena PVP - I'm looking at you "The Division". I'm actually fine with instancing when it fits, but I don't think instancing really fits in any MMORPG. I believe that as you add instancing you quickly breakdown the massive aspect of the game, so the less you can get away with, the better. Personally, I want the truest massive virtual world possible, which means a game design with no instancing what so ever, will pantheon deliver, I don't know, but I trust Brad and team to deliver the next greatest virtual world since Norrath.
Im mixed on this. I feel having some instances is great for the players that do not have a ton of time to sink playing and camping mobs. In both EQ1 and EQ2 my guild had the best non instanced mobs on lockdown. No one killed them unless we felt lazy. I do feel EQ2 had to many instances but the gear reflected that. yah you could get some nice loot from instances but the best of the best was contested mob drops.
If you have never been on a server that 1 or 2 guilds had the content on lockdown you wouldnt really know the frustration of having all open world content because you will never get good gear or become good enough to join those guilds because you cant farm the gear because they are farming it for alts of alts. Having most loot tradable and sellable will make the lockdown even worse. Instances do need lockout timers though so they arent perma farmed it also hewlps force players into the contested world while lockout timers cool down.
The one area I feel different is raiding. I would rather have more ionstances raiding with a very long lockout and a hand ful of supe rhard contested raid mobs that were super tough but dropped the most gear.
It is a double edged sword and need to balance it correctly