Kalgore said:Dullahan said:Well you can believe it, it happened. There were many people who could not join any of the major guilds because of their misconduct (Tarew Marr). If anyone in our guild had an issue with a player, they did not get in. Frankly, based on your statements @Kalgore, I have a hard time believing you even played EQ early on.
It was especially prevalent on Rallos Zek with PKs. If you randomly killed other players, you had the option of joining a PK guild or creating a new character if you wanted to see the inside of a high level dungeon or raid zone.
I dont really care what you think. Im just saying from my experaince wasnt an issue. Pandemoniom was a guild full of assholes that had no problem finding people to join or killing raid mobs. Rallos Zek was a server made for PKING
I will back Kalgore a little on this. On UO my best friend at the time was the 3rd best PVPer on Catskills. He brought his 2 friends who were the top 2 PVPers on Catskills. If I wanted to I could cause all kinds of **** and my friends would back me. For example I ran the Shadow Wyrm room for a good 3 weeks during my peak time. A few guys wanted to fight me for it so I said ok, and met them in bucs den, my 3 friends shown up even though these 5 guys wanted to fight me, they ran off. Then they called me a coward for bringing known PKers into the fight that no one wanted to fight. I was an ass. The thing was if people were respectful I would work with them if not I was an ass and could ruin their day. O and that fight a bucs den ended up happening only that brought a few more friends and one was a tamer that had his White Wyrm sent to the Balron room. The 4 of us didn’t die lol.
Anyways while you have some grounds to stand on Dullahan the truth is people who want to be complete ass holes would be that way. Even during Vanilla and TBC WOW. They all just ended up in the same guild on my server. So there is some advantage being old school but it does not force everyone to behave all the time. That’s why I feel there needs to be some counter balance to open world PVE mmos because you will not stop ass holes just because people will be forced to behave.
I will back Kalgore a little on this. On UO my best friend at the time was the 3rd best PVPer on Catskills. The top 2 where his close friends. If I wanted to I could cause all kinds of **** and my friends would back me. For example I ran the Shadow Wyrm room for a good 3 weeks during my peak time. A few guys wanted to fight me for it so I said ok, and met them in bucs den, my 3 friends shown up even though these 5 guys wanted to fight me, they ran off. Then they called me a cowerd for bringing known PKers into the fight that no one wanted to fight. I was an ass. The thing was if people were respectful
Dullahan said:Well you can believe it, it happened. There were many people who could not join any of the major guilds because of their misconduct (Tarew Marr). If anyone in our guild had an issue with a player, they did not get in. Frankly, based on your statements @Kalgore, I have a hard time believing you even played EQ early on.
It was especially prevalent on Rallos Zek with PKs. If you randomly killed other players, you had the option of joining a PK guild or creating a new character if you wanted to see the inside of a high level dungeon or raid zone.
I wish I had played on Sullen Zek when I first started playing EQ. I heard they had a pretty epic community. I guess no rules PvP does that to a community. If Pantheon did have a PvP server I would hope it was in line with the Sullen Zek server. I might even play PvP if that was the case (it would be even better if they have a RP PvP server, I find PvP really adds to the opportunity to role play properly).
Amsai said: Not sure how that EMU you are playing is set uo or in what way you mean solo friendly. But IMO the original FFXI wasnt very solo friendly past lvl 10 ish even for the "solo" class Beast Master. But like I said Im not sure if you mean for a specific thing or if the EMU has some of the newer solo friendly additions maybe? In regards to your assessment about how camping was handled I think you are basically right. For as muchbas I loved XI it wasnt perfect for sure. Ive posted it before but Ill get a link for XI Sea and Sky info later........ cuz android sucks
Thank you Amsai. I seen you asking about it in the camping post. I would like to read if I am in line with what you are thinking.
Dullahan said:Mephiles said:Amasai he doesn't know much about FFXI. I actually ran into one of his group on said EMU server ( that is, assuming you were with rallyd, I play there myself) and most of them really didn't try to understand it. Much of what you just said dullahan is factually wrong.
Only a FEW NMs (notorious monsters, bosses, whatever you would call them) are timed. The VAST majority of them in FFXI were what people called lotto NMs which means they were in fact random. They often had a MINIMUM cooldown after being killed to spawn but after that cooldown it could take 5 minutes to 18 hours. Some of them had very set spawn places and others had much wider and more random conditions. Even on timed spawns many of them had windows (for example behemoth 20-23 hours so a 3 hour random window).
As for being able to progress solo that really was not possible in FFXI as it really was back when it was good. Most of the time you would struggle to fight monsters a good few levels under you when you were going solo. From level 10 - 75 (then cap) it was 99% group everything. I will thank you to not make sweeping judgements about a game you barely played.
First, you have no idea when or how much I've played FFXI. Minimum cooldowns are timed, btw. Maybe those timers are shorter for some mobs, but not common, thus what I said stands. Are you trying to say that as early as the first few expansions, you couldn't solo mobs below your level and gain xp? That you couldn't progress without grouping?
Either way, the proof is in the pudding. If people were really that dependent on one another, people wouldn't just roll up and **** on others. People had to retire characters and start over for that kind of stuff in EQ.
What....? The mob spawn condition is not TIME so it is not timed. They are LOTTO spawn monsters (meaning they have a % chance to spawn) the timer is a lockout its a completely different mechanic.
As for your experience you are right I do not know but the fact you gave flat out wrong information and that you reference the emulator (which is itself inaccurate to how the game actually was) is very suggestive as to your actual experience. If I am wrong feel free to state your actual experience. Even with that aside you still gave wrong information about it so its somewhat besides the point anyway.
While you COULD solo mobs below your level and gain exp (this was possible in everquest as well) it was not practical as a means of progress at all. Back then in ffxi easy mobs (the only ones you could reliably fight solo except on a few solo strong jobs) only gave up to 30 exp per kill and most fights would leave you with down time or down time after every other kill. Think about that, 30 exp per kill, slow and with down time by comparison with a group which would give 200-400 exp per kill faster and with less or no down time. Again it suggests you don't have experience with it because nobody did it that way. Solo was higher risk for not even a fraction of the reward and grouping was ALWAYS the way to level.
As for your last comment, different game different community expectations. Early ffxi def. had community policing like you are thinking thought the expectations people had were to compete to claim NMs (though this culture likely formed out of people using bots). Again I am assuming your experience to be purely with the emu or you would know this. The emulator community sadly is kindof trashy (this is part of why I believe that community policing isnt good enough on its own). We live in a different time now, the GENERAL culture of games, the internet, etc. is different (I do still believe in community in a game that supports it but I dont think we will ever have a game with a community as good as they were back in the earlier days of mmos because the culture has changed).
At the end of the day your comments about it are not accurate. FFXI made use of random mechanics in all forms (the time for them to spawn, the location that they spawned, the chance for them to spawn, weather conditions for them to spawn, use of items to spawn them, it being night or day). FFXI was also did not support solo progress, while technically possible it was not supported except for with beastmaster (which is not unlike necro for eq in that aspect) and suggesting that it being technically possible (which again it technically is for eq as well) by progressing at a rate of like 100 to 1 or more is insane. It already took people a year or so to hit cap in ffxi in its early days and that was with grouping. If you were to attempt the same solo, certain things would not even be possible to accomplish (there were certain points you required a group or help from a higher level to progress period) and just gaiing the exp would end up taking you forever.
Mephiles said:The emulator community sadly is kindof trashy (this is part of why I believe that community policing isnt good enough on its own). We live in a different time now, the GENERAL culture of games, the internet, etc. is different (I do still believe in community in a game that supports it but I dont think we will ever have a game with a community as good as they were back in the earlier days of mmos because the culture has changed).
I this is why I brought up having instances only because other people like Mephiles knows that the General MMO population is completely changed and that change has led to very bad behavoir that it’s unacceptable. The reason it was done was because money. There is no way to bring that culture back in line with self-policing which worked to a point in older MMOs but it is not possible today. That is why games have all these mechanics like people getting credit for killing a mob someone else stole from you, FFXIV is trying the mentor system and that’s failing. The reason is not instances, it’s how instances have been used and the LFD tool that WOW brought into the MMO Genera to make treadmill gaming. So the problem is NOT instances the problem is how they were used. You just have to look at the first 4 years of WOW and see that instances worked extremely well, hell 11.5 Million players were active in 4 years. They were a piece of content, yes there was a treadmill at the high end, but it required you to be social on some level.
Anyways That is going to be my old hold up which is the same concern my other friends who were watching the stream tonight said and are talking to me about right now. What happens when a large guild comes walking into our camp and takes over because there are more of them and they want to grieve us. I guess we will see how it goes. We will keep our eyes on this.
HelzBelz said:Amsai said: Not sure how that EMU you are playing is set uo or in what way you mean solo friendly. But IMO the original FFXI wasnt very solo friendly past lvl 10 ish even for the "solo" class Beast Master. But like I said Im not sure if you mean for a specific thing or if the EMU has some of the newer solo friendly additions maybe? In regards to your assessment about how camping was handled I think you are basically right. For as muchbas I loved XI it wasnt perfect for sure. Ive posted it before but Ill get a link for XI Sea and Sky info later........ cuz android sucks
Thank you Amsai. I seen you asking about it in the camping post. I would like to read if I am in line with what you are thinking.
Here is a link complete with a flow chart for the Gods: http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/wiki/Sky_(FFXI)
Its basically (to me) the perfect meeting of contested and non contested. Multiple Named in a large zone so no uberguild can be all places at once. Open world competition for trigger or pop items that drop from Named. Then using the trigger items to summon the Gods. All open world. All despawn on wipe (which means collecting pops again), unless another Guild grabs it. All have rare drop rates for loot should you beat them. No instancing, 50/50 ratio of competitive and triggered Named. Back in the day when competiton was fierce (4 to 6 guilds on any given night) and the Gods were relevent. My guild could expect to spend 2 of 3 nights just trying to get the pop items (3-5 hours a night) needed to trigger a Named by day three.... roughly. So it was almost like having a 72 hour lock out with the addition of rare loot tables (it wasnt unheard of to have 3 God runs in a row drop jack ****). It was also a dangerous zone and wasnt uncommon to come around a bend and find an entire guild of dead people lol.
HelzBelz said:Dullahan said:To me the modern, casual, instanced mmorpg is fast food gaming. I understand why its there. The same reason the drive through in McDonalds is there - convenience. Its much harder to orchestrate the huge open world and spread and balanced all the content in such a way that there is competition, but no so much that the player feels stifled.
The truth is, casual mmos aren't created to promote immersion or to simulate a virtual society. They are there for quick and easy fun. I'm not knocking that, I'm just disappointed in the decision so many studios have made to abandon the mmoRPG and the depth that goes with it, especially in light of the fact that casual mmos haven't been particularly profitable for anyone outside of Blizzard.
I'm looking forward to a restaurant quality game in Pantheon and all the ambience that goes with it!
Hey Dullahan,
Good to see you here from MMORPG.com.
Anyways I want to disagree with you on the Instance vs open world arguement. In Vanilla\TBC WOW I met a lot of people by doing Instances. The root of why MMOs have become fast foot restrutants is the fact that Dungeons have become a part of the treadmill and todays MMOs force you to do X amount of Dungeons to get to the Raid instances. Instances are NOT the problem. Its how they are designed. I think Pantheon should have instances but make them non-liner and maybe something a group could save if it is a hour or longer Dungeon\Instance where players will come back later to. The same can be said about Instanced like raids.
So lets talk about the CORE issue with Instanced play. The problem when WOW WOTLK came out is you needed to gear up from Normals to do Heroics to do raids. While at first this was fun people didnt want to go back to Normals or Heroics after they were geared. So grouping for these instances became very slow and hard to do. Its because they became obsolite and players got tired of playing mash AOE button instances. So WOW brought in the LFD tool which completely killed MMOs because the social aspect of MMOs was removed.
So how do we fix this. First I think the problem is the path from Max level to X amount of Dungeons to Y Raids. During Vanilia WOW and TBC is was easy to reach a base core state needed to get into the raids, example is Tanks needed X amount of Defense so they could not take a crit hit. This was able to be done buy crafted gear, quest gear, and Dungeon gear. There were options out there to get into raiding and it was not a long or treadmill like process. Yes the treadmill did start from Tier 1 to Tier 2 and so on. Thats is Fine thats where the treadmill should be because you can do things in an instance with a set or range of players that cannot be done in an open world raid boss. Example is look at FFXIV's boss Fates, when there are 100+ people beating on Odin the boss could be a little tough but he would die fast. The boss fight was a fast roll fight.
I Personally feel we need to really look at group size and raid size. They have to be manageable in the way of numbers PLUS look at flexiblity. Maybe a group dungeon should be scableble from 4 to 8 members. Then Raids scalable from 8 to 16 members. Then have the flexablity to save the Dungeon\Raid at a save point within the instance where no mobs spawn behind you and when the group comes in you start right at the save point. Also make tiered dungeons as well as tiered raids and make them equal in the way of progression. The first Tier of Dungeons should equal .5 of a Raid tier, then dungeon teir 1 equals Tier 2 of the raid. Also have Crafted gear as an option to help players to get from Dungeons into Raids and max level into Dungeons.
Also there should be a Looking for Group tool, BUT not a WOW Automated Looking for Group tool. The tool should be something that I could list myself as looking for a group for X Dungeon or Dungeons, or Raids or Camping group. The tool should also let me list my group if I have one. This allows players to see who is looking for a group and who has a group that needs people. I dont think people will stick around if they have to do /LFG Looking for group I been here for an hour someone please take me. People today need some level of convienance and listing themselves as looking or list the group as looking can fill the role of enough convienance without being an MMO breaking tool.
Hey Helz... welcome aboard.
I'm going to keep being a thorn in everyone's side.. but lets not look at Pantheon as an old game, but a new type of game. Yes, there are going to be similiar & fundmental underlaying mechanics (VG & EQ)that govern Pantheon.. but those mechanics are next to nothing.. compared to the heights Pantheon is going.
In a MMORPG, one has to build a World.. from the ground up. (Have already envisioned a complete story, & lore.. etc)
That means you have to have a story of why the world is... and what is your character's part in all of this. That means stars and knight & day cycles..etc. It must become a living breathing world.. and all without you. A storied world, existing without you. Back in 1998 when EQ was in early beta, that is what brad did with Everquest.. and used the best of the technology of the day... and made a living breathing world. Where, is his world a Non-Player-Characters would talk with you, if you conversed with them... & some where even known to ask for help.. (wink).
Worlds where nations & factions are at war with each other, and where there are different languages & writings. Worlds where Character's can gather things and use them to make other things. Worlds with animals... monster, snakes, bees, pits, traps, jinns, dragons and a crazy gnoll named fippy..!
Within these worlds... true player-developers do not design dungeons, based on how you (or most players) think. They are building them on based on RPG principals and essentially.. asking themselves how would've a dragon actually burrow and make Their own liar... how goblins would actually dig their own tunnels, or construct their own kingdoms.. how nations would've rise, or fallen.. all which adds history to the game. And with those stories told... with all the years that have past before your time, somewhere out there it all still lays in ruins.. (Rise of the fallen..?)
A living breathing world... and none of that has anything to do with an artificial limit on raid amount. Or a Developer "right sizing" and encounter, or artifically using instancing because it suited past games.
None of that thinking is open ended, like brad keeps asking us to be... try to be more free form and have less rules & game mechanics that inhibit your character. Look beyond why you want instancing, because it is the only thing you can think of.. and look outside the box. And understand, that the right-sizing of a raid encounter is not on the Developer, but on the player's themselves. The who & how many it takes to for victory will be dependant on the competency of the players involved, and/or the make up of the classes involved, etc.
Not a static number like raid encounter for 30 people this way...>
In Pantheon (look at some pictures VRi has revealed)... dungeons are going to be like the wild ~ wild ~ west.. and "encounters" are not going to based on 10 people.. or 25 people groups. And raid size will be utterly dynamic depending on what theme dungeon you are in. Dungeons are going to be more devious & tougher than in EQ.. the mechanics are going to be richer.. allow for more dynamic gameplay/combat.. and way more interplay.
I predict Dungeons so vast and deep, that several raids could be taking place in the same dungeon, and these guilds would never see, or hear each other... (why do you need/want instancing again?)
It is the 17 Anniversary of EverQuest...
And again, only harping because I am trying to get people to streeeatch their thinking and imagine a EQ with modern graphics and way more built-in player mechanics, along with 64bit game world, 3D positioning of sound, incredible animations, housing, boats, horses and real free standing guild Halls, Keeps and Castles. Think forward, not backward.
Unfortuneately much of that content is not possible upon release, with Visionary Realm's current budget. But if a publisher snapped them up and gave them an AAA budged.. VRi could announced that Pantheon would be released a year later (2018+) with all those things just mentioned. But, as any true Player-Developer knows... Publisher get in the way of creativity (ie: too much instancing, not enough content or solutions)
Even though that content & assets can't be added into the game now, their mechanics are still being designed into the base mechanics of the game now... and that is what what brad & co are doing right now. They are baking.. and in later expansions, provisions for the unlocking of player housing, or so boats can be done. Such things take incredible amount of inticate front end/back end Develpment work, allowing for later, to fill in that content with copacious amounts of man hours creating that content. Brad is a grandmaster at projecting his vision forward and playing with mechaics in his head. If you have followed his previous works, you would understand he is regimented and likes a certain tick-tock cadence. Focused around build-outs and milestones. With enough tick-tocking, you can efficiently work your way through pre alpha ~ beta.
Visionary Realms is going places...
I think I'm gonna throw my hat in to the ring with the people in support of no instances, I can definetly see the usefullness of instances.
Something that might be cool (and that is a little of a compromise) would be to have the dungeon zones have population caps on them. For example: lets say that Blackburrow has a population cap of 50 players, these players both solo and grouped can see and interact with each other and have fun times, but players in Qeynos Hills trying to get into Blackburrow are greeted with some sort of lore appropriate message ("The gnolls are marshalling for war, perhaps it would be best to keep your distance...for now.") until players leave Blackburrow. Finally, if a player were to log out in Blackburrow he would open up a slot (as if he left) and would log back in in the zone he entered Blackburrow from.
What would be nice about this system is that it lets people have the best of both worlds, there are other people in the dungeon to meet and party with but there is guarunteed to be enough spwans to go around for farming. The only point of competition would be the bosses, but a little competition is a good thing. Now obviously Blackburrow would be a terrible dungeon to implement something like this on (because it is the only way to get from Halas to the rest of the world) but what's great about systems like these is that they don't need to be implemented on every single dungeon, just the ones where overcrowding or excessive spwan camping is common.
Mod Edit: removed quote of deleted post.
It's not fun to beg for scraps in a full zone. It's not fun to hunt for hours or days on end only to have your target steamrollered by an uberguild or picked off by a random visitor. It's not fun to force confrontations. That's not the 'social' I'm looking for. In a cooperative game bottlenecks, overloads and competitive play leads to contention and misery. I really believe the challenge should be from the world you're in not competition with other players.
There is a technical mechanic to easily avoid this, especially in the days of cloud servers. Instancing is necessary and good if used appropriately.
Have sat in a dungeon for 3 days real time with few breaks in order to encounter a rare spawn. Have spammed "Hi all. Please don't kill Monster X if it appears. I've been hunting all weekend for it. Thanks!" all that time. Have ground my teeth when maybe 6 times over the weekend I receive a comment like "Oh, just killed Monster X, sorry". Have nearly cried from frustration when a guild turns up and kills Monster X twice in quick order because the 50 of them search every corner quickly and ignore my pleas. By the time I got that bastard epic I didn't want it anymore.
Maybe that's a case for a triggered spawn, not an instance, but spawning an instance of the dungeon just for that quest part would do it too.
"Hey buddies, I have the item needed to spawn an instance of Dungeon X, will you come help me hunt for Monster X in there at the weekend?"
"Hey buddies, I'd like to travel to the X Mountains this weekend - anyone in?" "UberGuild are there for Dragon X this weekend, but another instance of the Mountains should spawn, so sure thing"
Still social. No longer agonising.
Way back when 1.0 FFXIV was a flop and they were rewriting it my sister and I wrote a blog post covering a lot of our wishes, dreams and expectations of 2.0.
Here is what we wrote about this topic (note it is pretty specific to FFXIV):
Instanced vs. Openworld
There are pros and cons to both. If you go with all openworld you risk the possibility of losing an NM to another player or a camp to another party as well as it allows you to bring 20 of your friends to go do something that was probably balanced towards being a challenge to a party of 8. If you go all instanced then you lose the feeling of a persistent world where you will never see anyone except your LS mates and there are no competitive activities of any kind. You would never come across that level 20 CNJ getting their butt kicked by Alux and swoop in with a cure and make a new friend. It would be a cold and lonely world.
Sumasu Sisters Say:
We think nearly everything in the game should be Openworld except those situations where it makes sense to go with instanced.
Things that make sense would be:
How they went about guildleves is interesting; you have your own mobs that belong to you but you can still see and interact with other players. We like this.
Also, the fear of losing a NM pop to someone else shouldn't be grounds to instance everything. There are ways of combating the monopolizing of NM's that need to be implemented instead.
With Pantheon I expect a large world with enough openworld content to go around. There may be times it makes sense to instance but I would hope to see it used sparingly.
Instances are only being used for certain story things in Pantheon according to Brad. 99% of the game will be completely open world. I just hope things are evened out enough that we won't have everyone in game fighting for the same camps come end game. That will make for some bad blood I fear.
Tralyan said:I'm actually very surprised that this topic has garnered so much heat/pages. With Pantheon being filled with the playerbase it is, I was fully expecting an overwhelming negative towards instancing.
Interesting.
-Tralyan
Shoot, theres probably 50 more pages on instancing scattered throughout various derailed threads and in threads archived pre-2015. Sadly, the genre has become so inundated with casual mechanics, even those who played mostly EQ seem to have lowered their expectations and come to expect more instant gratification in their virtual world.
disposalist said:It's not fun to beg for scraps in a full zone. It's not fun to hunt for hours or days on end only to have your target steamrollered by an uberguild or picked off by a random visitor. It's not fun to force confrontations. That's not the 'social' I'm looking for. In a cooperative game bottlenecks, overloads and competitive play leads to contention and misery. I really believe the challenge should be from the world you're in not competition with other players.
There is a technical mechanic to easily avoid this, especially in the days of cloud servers. Instancing is necessary and good if used appropriately.
Have sat in a dungeon for 3 days real time with few breaks in order to encounter a rare spawn. Have spammed "Hi all. Please don't kill Monster X if it appears. I've been hunting all weekend for it. Thanks!" all that time. Have ground my teeth when maybe 6 times over the weekend I receive a comment like "Oh, just killed Monster X, sorry". Have nearly cried from frustration when a guild turns up and kills Monster X twice in quick order because the 50 of them search every corner quickly and ignore my pleas. By the time I got that bastard epic I didn't want it anymore.
Maybe that's a case for a triggered spawn, not an instance, but spawning an instance of the dungeon just for that quest part would do it too.
"Hey buddies, I have the item needed to spawn an instance of Dungeon X, will you come help me hunt for Monster X in there at the weekend?"
"Hey buddies, I'd like to travel to the X Mountains this weekend - anyone in?" "UberGuild are there for Dragon X this weekend, but another instance of the Mountains should spawn, so sure thing"
Still social. No longer agonising.
Instancing has no place in a game like this, it destroys the integrity of the world and the items we're all after. The last thing I want is to be on some uber camp that took an hour to break to realize a dozen other people are doing the exact same thing at the exact same time. There is no prestige, there is no meaning anymore.
The solution is to shard at the SERVER level to control population, not to instance CONTENT.
Krixus said:The solution is to shard at the SERVER level to control population, not to instance CONTENT.
Pretty much this. And beyond keeping server populations at optimum concentrations, proper world building should help prevent camps from being too contested. By ensuring that risk vs reward remains in check, the camps with the really sweet drops should also be really risky to occupy. That will ensure turnover as people won't want to stay longer than they have to, or will be forced out of they're playing in areas beyond what they're prepared for.
I want to be out in the world with other people for better or for worse. Instancing isolates people from each other, I don't see how anyone can argue that it doesn't undermine the social dynamic of a full "open world" game. Does it alleviate some negative social dyamics? Sure. But now we're throwing the baby out with the bath water. We've been there and done that. This is not that game.
If population issues, kill stealing, poopsocking, etc, become severe issues then the devlopers need to address them, but they should not preemptively design the game around instancing. IMO, instancing is a cure worse than the disease.
There are a whole bunch of great ideas here, I know the devs are reading this thread, since it is such an important part of this game and any MMORPG. The problem with instances are just that, they give you everythng in one instance. All the named mobs, all the discoverys, all the xp, you get it all without any real sense of acomplishment (aside from winning a roll on the dice for an item woopeeee) further more, there is no competition, somthing all the great MMORPGs were based on. There has to be that feeling of true acomplishment when you come accross that special named and get an item that not everyone and there mother already has from running millions of instances. Items have to be no trade if instances are used, otherwise an aray of problems arise (botters, crazy twinked alts, everyone being the same since the items would be flooding the market if tradeable). That right there is enough to ruin what otherwise could be a great game.
there are two ways to combat overcrowding and guilds perma camping. First, the zone must be HUGE. Multiple camp spots, a huge list of named, trap doors, all sorts of stuff to make those negatives almost impossible. Second, Im not opposed to there being a limit on number of people in a contested zone, it must be a large number, but iam okay with multiple zones being opened once one is full.
Right now in EQ2, I almost exclusivley go to contested zones (old and new I dont care) I like exploring a massive zone, getting lost and finding named mobs etc..I enjoy running into other players, whether its competing against them or asking them to team up. So much interaction takes place in contested zones, its why they call it MMOrpg. Instances take away from the core components of what make a MMORPG a MMORPG. When there is lore involved and it makes sense, instances can actually be done very well by staying immersive; that idea I can get behind. But anything beyond that, for me, is not going to work. I have complete faith that VR will get it right, and if not they will listen to their players. Instances are all themepark style crap in all these MMORPGs, I refuse to play any of those games because of it. I want to feel like its an actual dungeon not a zone that looks big scenery wise, but in reality your guided along a short path and cant really explore anything or go anywhere different then the last thousand times you ran it.
Buckeyes said:
i am okay with multiple zones being opened once one is full.
This is a virtual world. Duplicating content ruins that. Overcrowding is part of a world. Underpopulation is too. People being KSing training jerks is part of the world. Awesome friendly selfless people are too. If this game is to have *meaning*, if completing an encounter, looting an item, getting a level, are to have *meaning*, instancing content can't be a part of it.
"Hey Krix which Lower Guk are you in? 4? Okay".
NO.
I'm in LOWER GUK, period. There is ONE frenzied ghoul up right now. We are the ONLY group doing him. That means something, and if sometimes that means crappy overcrowding, so be it. And if that means I can't get into the Frenzied Ghoul camp, that sucks, and so be it. When I finally do, it will be even more worth it because we do not have a RIGHT to get everything. The game doesn't owe me the opportunity. I'll have to go somewhere and do something else and try again later. Things are special explicitly because not everybody can have everything!!!
With the good comes the bad, it doesn't mean we should eliminate both. If there are always 2 versions of a zone, guess what you just did the value of every single item in that zone, you cut it in half.
Enitzu said:Instances are only being used for certain story things in Pantheon according to Brad. 99% of the game will be completely open world. I just hope things are evened out enough that we won't have everyone in game fighting for the same camps come end game. That will make for some bad blood I fear.
Perhaps an element of faith is advisable here. Maybe there are alternative methods that will be more agreeable to everyone to prevent the bad behavior. They have already said that there will be incentives to change servers when they branch a new one. That's one. Maybe there are other dynamics they have planned or will come up with to mitigate the negatives of the open world without the drastic core game tenet changing step that is instancing content.
I think it can be possible for some instancing to occur around trainers. Some form of one-on-one content when visiting a trainer and first gaining new abilities. Just you and the trainer or a training room. Pass or fail - no penalty for fail. Try again and again or come back at some other time. No reward for a pass except perhaps the start of being able to use a new ability - not content breaking, mind you; could be having it leveled up a bit rather than starting fresh or allow you to have the ability one or two levels sooner. Maybe even do this with certain itemized crafting. Go gather a bunch of hamsters running around before making ingredients for a pie where the flame of the stove keeps going out.
That's a form of instancing that works for solo (such as visiting a trainer or doing crafting).
I vote no to instances - or at least keeping them extremely rare. Like some of you have said, I also really don't like the division/isolation/watering down of loot that instances cause. And I love seeing other players run around in the same dungeon as me!
Now, players locking others out of raid content is horrible. There are a few things I can think of that you can do server side instead of instancing to keep it under some type of control, unless you trust your playerbase to not grieve one another. I'm not sure that is possible. Not everyone is mature and patient. If you find holes in my ideas, please, by all means, point them out!
When there are enough guilds competing for the same content to cause a problem, you can flag an entire guild once they've killed a boss, so they have to wait their turn to do it next. Same in the case of guild alliances. Logging on alts and doing it that way won't help, if you limit how many guilds per server an account can be attached to. (You could join other guilds on other servers, if you like.) You could have guilds, who are ready for a raid, to hail an invulnerable NPC (to prevent blocking out of spite that way), like a hermit or a sage somewhere, and thereby get in a queue for the boss. This to not totally kill immersion.
Once your guild's turn is up, he's unplayable to everyone else (like VG). If your guild doesn't do try to raid the boss a certain time after the boss has (re)spawed, the next in line gets a shot at it.
If it's quick and easy to disband a guild, you could at the time of flagging also flag the characters. Or perhaps flag the account on that server (also to prevent using alts to work around it). This way they can't de-guild to create another guild in order to avoid the flagging. Patches turn the flagging on and off as needed. Of course, some guilds may attempt to train the raiding guild out of spite, but perhaps flags and other things can be done there, too, if the boss is like the dragons of early EQ = alone in their thone rooms. Or skip the flags and suspend/ban the guild who are attempting the grieving. Of course, people have already been hurt by then.
Personally, I wish we, the players, would be decent enough towards each other to not have to enforce server control. But I've seen too many ugly fights in the past for that trust to be there. It really is a sad thing to me.
Krixus said:disposalist said:It's not fun to beg for scraps in a full zone. It's not fun to hunt for hours or days on end only to have your target steamrollered by an uberguild or picked off by a random visitor. It's not fun to force confrontations. That's not the 'social' I'm looking for. In a cooperative game bottlenecks, overloads and competitive play leads to contention and misery. I really believe the challenge should be from the world you're in not competition with other players.
There is a technical mechanic to easily avoid this, especially in the days of cloud servers. Instancing is necessary and good if used appropriately.
Have sat in a dungeon for 3 days real time with few breaks in order to encounter a rare spawn. Have spammed "Hi all. Please don't kill Monster X if it appears. I've been hunting all weekend for it. Thanks!" all that time. Have ground my teeth when maybe 6 times over the weekend I receive a comment like "Oh, just killed Monster X, sorry". Have nearly cried from frustration when a guild turns up and kills Monster X twice in quick order because the 50 of them search every corner quickly and ignore my pleas. By the time I got that bastard epic I didn't want it anymore.
Maybe that's a case for a triggered spawn, not an instance, but spawning an instance of the dungeon just for that quest part would do it too.
"Hey buddies, I have the item needed to spawn an instance of Dungeon X, will you come help me hunt for Monster X in there at the weekend?"
"Hey buddies, I'd like to travel to the X Mountains this weekend - anyone in?" "UberGuild are there for Dragon X this weekend, but another instance of the Mountains should spawn, so sure thing"
Still social. No longer agonising.
Instancing has no place in a game like this, it destroys the integrity of the world and the items we're all after. The last thing I want is to be on some uber camp that took an hour to break to realize a dozen other people are doing the exact same thing at the exact same time. There is no prestige, there is no meaning anymore.
The solution is to shard at the SERVER level to control population, not to instance CONTENT.
Wow you seem pretty dang intractable there.
With server control, those other people are still doing the same thing at the same time on a different server aren't they? What's the difference if instancing is at zone level because the zone is full? (And then removed when it's not). You don't want to have to spin off a whole new server just because one zone gets overcrowded due to a load of guilds picking Christmas holidays to do the same raid do you?
And surely the prestige in achieving your goal comes effectively organising friends to overcome the monsters and environment, not from trampling some other player(s) underfoot. Not that everyone is motivated by bragging rights anyway.
disposalist said:Krixus said:disposalist said:It's not fun to beg for scraps in a full zone. It's not fun to hunt for hours or days on end only to have your target steamrollered by an uberguild or picked off by a random visitor. It's not fun to force confrontations. That's not the 'social' I'm looking for. In a cooperative game bottlenecks, overloads and competitive play leads to contention and misery. I really believe the challenge should be from the world you're in not competition with other players.
There is a technical mechanic to easily avoid this, especially in the days of cloud servers. Instancing is necessary and good if used appropriately.
Have sat in a dungeon for 3 days real time with few breaks in order to encounter a rare spawn. Have spammed "Hi all. Please don't kill Monster X if it appears. I've been hunting all weekend for it. Thanks!" all that time. Have ground my teeth when maybe 6 times over the weekend I receive a comment like "Oh, just killed Monster X, sorry". Have nearly cried from frustration when a guild turns up and kills Monster X twice in quick order because the 50 of them search every corner quickly and ignore my pleas. By the time I got that bastard epic I didn't want it anymore.
Maybe that's a case for a triggered spawn, not an instance, but spawning an instance of the dungeon just for that quest part would do it too.
"Hey buddies, I have the item needed to spawn an instance of Dungeon X, will you come help me hunt for Monster X in there at the weekend?"
"Hey buddies, I'd like to travel to the X Mountains this weekend - anyone in?" "UberGuild are there for Dragon X this weekend, but another instance of the Mountains should spawn, so sure thing"
Still social. No longer agonising.
Instancing has no place in a game like this, it destroys the integrity of the world and the items we're all after. The last thing I want is to be on some uber camp that took an hour to break to realize a dozen other people are doing the exact same thing at the exact same time. There is no prestige, there is no meaning anymore.
The solution is to shard at the SERVER level to control population, not to instance CONTENT.
Wow you seem pretty dang intractable there.
With server control, those other people are still doing the same thing at the same time on a different server aren't they? What's the difference if instancing is at zone level because the zone is full? (And then removed when it's not). You don't want to have to spin off a whole new server just because one zone gets overcrowded due to a load of guilds picking Christmas holidays to do the same raid do you?
And surely the prestige in achieving your goal comes effectively organising friends to overcome the monsters and environment, not from trampling some other player(s) underfoot. Not that everyone is motivated by bragging rights anyway.
Exactly, on a different server, which is a different world. You will never see that person, speak to them, be impacted by them or their economy. A server is completely different in its application and impact than an instance. Servers are alternate dimensions. Surely you understand that?
What's the difference if a zone is instanced? I just explained it in detail, but I'll repeat myself. It devalues EVERYTHING. If there are 2 instances of a zone up 50% of the time, guess what, every single encounter, every single item in that zone is now devalued proportionally.
And again, stop with the logical fallacies. "trampling other players underfoot" is not in any way correlated to status or achievement.
It's not about "bragging rights". It's about having what you do in the game matter. When you don't get something, it sucks. And because it sucks, when you DO get it, it matters even more. Instancing removes extremes, good and bad. Those extremes are part of what made EQ absolute freaking MAGIC.
Thats your opinion Krix, but right before saying Iam okay with another contested zone opening once one is full, I stated it MUST be a LARGE number of people to actually have that happen. Large to me isnt 20 or 30 people, im talking prime time 100 people trying to compete in the same zone (around launch, after release of xpac I could see this happening). But clearly my sentimate is that I dont like instances, I explaind my EQ2 habbits of only using contested zones. Ultimately it goes back to what I said about the zones needing to be HUGE, with lots and lots of named mobs, even if all arent really rare with the really rare items. If they get that part right, guess what? The zones should be able to handle 100 people without being an absolute joke, and there would be no need to even discuss instances. I know the VR team will get it right. Even if my numbers are a bit exagherated , you get my point. Its all based on design, if the contested zones are too small then there will be problems, it wont matter if people want instances or not, somthing would have to be done and thats what I hope is avoided.
Controling server population is not easy, tell me how that is done? That sounds like a great answer to the problem on paper, but it is not easily done. And im sorry but if you think that they can control enough people changing servers by offering incentives, you got another thing commin, that is no viable. Unless they are offering something that is literally uber powerful as in items, buffs, exp bonuses. Whatever it is, it would have be to be enough to get large numbers of people to leave their friends,guilds etc.. and if something that good is offered up for doing nothing but switching servers there would be a major uprising. cmon man!!!
Buckeyes said:Thats your opinion Krix, but right before saying Iam okay with another contested zone opening once one is full, I stated it MUST be a LARGE number of people to actually have that happen. Large to me isnt 20 or 30 people, im talking prime time 100 people trying to compete in the same zone (around launch, after release of xpac I could see this happening). But clearly my sentimate is that I dont like instances, I explaind my EQ2 habbits of only using contested zones. Ultimately it goes back to what I said about the zones needing to be HUGE, with lots and lots of named mobs, even if all arent really rare with the really rare items. If they get that part right, guess what? The zones should be able to handle 100 people without being an absolute joke, and there would be no need to even discuss instances. I know the VR team will get it right. Even if my numbers are a bit exagherated , you get my point. Its all based on design, if the contested zones are too small then there will be problems, it wont matter if people want instances or not, somthing would have to be done and thats what I hope is avoided.
Controling server population is not easy, tell me how that is done? That sounds like a great answer to the problem on paper, but it is not easily done. And im sorry but if you think that they can control enough people changing servers by offering incentives, you got another thing commin, that is no viable. Unless they are offering something that is literally uber powerful as in items, buffs, exp bonuses. Whatever it is, it would have be to be enough to get large numbers of people to leave their friends,guilds etc.. and if something that good is offered up for doing nothing but switching servers there would be a major uprising. cmon man!!!
We've discussed how it's done and I don't get why you're acting like people wouldn't change servers to a new one, it's happened time and again. The fact that they'd add some kind of "incentive" is only going to make it more likely. Hosting, sharding, server tech is miles beyond what it was in 1999. If they have the money, while it isn't trivial, I think you exaggerate the difficulty.