Age of Conan

lets see.  decent graphics+crowded area+many players+a whole zones worth of items crammed into a small space= super lag within 500m of the city unless its instanced.  i would much rather have an instanced city that doesn't lag everyone around it than an open one (plus it gives you some time to gather your thoughts as you enter/exit).

You do realize EQ2 did the same thing, don't you? When a zone gets too full it creates a copy of itself, and sometimes you'd have to change your instance to match your group. Of course, now EQ2 is barely populated, so that rarely happens, if ever, anymore.

Ye i was on the city today and the lag was huuuuuuuuuuuuuugeee coz all people got crowned in city pvping lol (i was disappointed about the game that time)

When i figured out to go in an open 20+ area it was paradise for me i saw 70fps and i had some animal hunting done and i enjoy it also people was friendly there i saw 24-25 lvl people already lol ...

Anyhow ye i noticed there also was 3 instances , probably all game will be instanced i don't know why Funcom didn't mention it in an announcement or something they said will be open w/o instances etc (that was what i read in the forums im not sure it was official)

Anyways this is bad about the instancing but the option to select whatever u want what instance to go is good. we will see how it will get in retail.

Originally posted by brostyn

You do realize EQ2 did the same thing, don't you? When a zone gets too full it creates a copy of itself, and sometimes you'd have to change your instance to match your group. Of course, now EQ2 is barely populated, so that rarely happens, if ever, anymore.

Haven't they fixed the group instancing problem yet?

I can see this getting really annoying and breaking immersion. Anytime someone calls for help, or wants to group up, or really does anything, we are going to have to include the name of the instance we are in to communicate it. PvP is also going to be drastically impacted...

"Calling all arms! The traitorous Acolytes are amassing outside old tarantia.... instances #14, 16, and 19!"

Probably not as big a deal on pve servers since everyone just goes about their business, though as mentioned grouping up with people is more of a crapshoot since its random who you end up with in the instance unless you are grouped.

But pvp servers, pretty much renders any kind of tactics of blocking or hunting down specific groups of players nearly impossible. Want to get by those other pesky players that control the area - no problem, just switch to a different instance! Instant escape and avoidance with minimal effort. Like a magic get out of jail free card :)

This also doesn't bode well for the keep sieges. If instancing exists because the game can't handle too many players on screen at once, than the only way funcom can have sieges in game without doing instances is to effectively hardcode a limit to the number of participants. I wonder if they are going to end up doing what POTBS did, a lottery of tickets to select who can participate, everyone else, cant enter the area.

If you complain about a game with zones, go ahead and play vanguard ITS So damm big but with nothing in it.  Morons these days.

I have to admit I'm very disappointed with the way the world was designed. It's not just instances, but the world zones are all a walled in box! As far as I can tell, the only way to go from one zone to another is to use the ship or caravan instant travel!

I was expecting zone boundaries like Anarchy Online, or at very worst limited zone to zone connections like in Guild Wars or Tabula Rasa. This is really just a huge joke and ruins any feeling you are in a virtual world.

I haven't given up on the game yet, but between the gank encouraging PvP system and this, I'm highly doubtful I'll still be playing this in a few months. (The world design also aids the gankfest problem. Only one spot to enter or leave a zone, set respawn points and quest hubs that are open for FFA PvP).

Time to pre-order Warhammer and hope that title delivers on more of t's hype than AoC.

Originally posted by TrunksZ

Originally posted by unsane13

Originally posted by TrunksZ

Even tho it sucks theres only to ways to solve this kind of problem:

1: To instance the game like they did.

or

2: To create hundred of servers (Wow-like).

IMO, I prefer the second option, they definetely should have pick the second option.

Any of you guys know if its going to be like guildwars where you go outside a city and you enter in like a single player mission, wich sucks because I WANT TO GANK NOOBS, ksing mobs, make people get kill and stuff like that or its going to have a limit of players per instance and when that instance is full it port you to another instance until that one get full and so ?

IT SUCKS because many of us dont have anyone to play with, I mean, I was specting to meet a lot of people and them to play with them, but now its going to be a little hard to meet people since most of the time I am going to be soloing. T_T

Thx for reading.

I'm actually glad its instanced so I will have a lower chance of playing with people like you. It takes tons of skill to kill new players and kill stealing has to be one of my biggest pet peeves in MMOG's. I bet you like spawn and quest npc camping too, or better yet I bet you like to hide and watch other people fight and swoop in when their health is low after battle. very classy.

If you dont like it, dont go into a PVP server, because thats what people normally do in PVP servers, L2P NOOB

hahaha.

Originally posted by demo3210

Instancing in a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game is a MAJOR turnoff for me, personally.  I feel like MMORPGS were specifically designed to be linked with everyone else in the world all at the same time.  This is really kind of the beautfy of MMORPGS, at least to me.  An alternate world that you can actually be someone and have an effect on that world you were just in.  And that world you were just in may or may not have changed the next time you logged in, but you knew that once you logged back in it was the same exact world you just left however long ago it was.

I thoroughly enjoyed Star Wars Galaxies sandbox method.  It may have lacked a lot of content in terms of questing, mission variety, etc. but you still could seamlessly travel through vastly large planets to cities as well as player cities.  The fact that this was so, added to the immersion of the world and made you feel like when you logged in you were actually in an alternate world and you had an effect in the world wherever you went.  It was like you were an integral part of it.  It was an amazing thing (until NGE that is).

Instancing is kind of why Guild Wars always turned me off, granted it was free/month and a great game overall, which kind of made it more okay in my opinion.  Great game...just instancing is once again, a turnoff to me.

I really do feel like instancing defeats some of the purpose of a true MMORPG.  It's basically like Diablo II where you just join a server to play for a little bit not feeling like you altered the world at all or in any way.  Nothing you did would ever change the world you logged back into.  (I am not saying in DII you were supposed to fell that way though) It was just a very self-indulgent game as it should be since it is in essence, a single player game.  But that set-up was completely okay to me because Diablo was one of the first of its kind and not specifically designed for an MMORPG concept; even though it accomplished its online counterpart quite successfully.

Instancing just breaks up the entire game as whole.  You log in and every time you go anywhere or i guess 'zone', if you will, you have to pick which numbered world you want in, like Tabula Rasa.  So it makes you feel distant from everyone else playing and almost like you live in your own little world and you don't matter too significantly as far as the game world is concerned. 

The only aspect that instancing shines in, is in the technical department.  Clearly hardware is an EXTREME issue with AOC and considering the depth of the graphics and software, I suppose there would be no other way around it without downgrading something of which more than likely would have been graphical appeal.   So does that mean that AOC is ahead of its time in terms of hardware specifications?  Maybe a little bit as far as the average pc gaming rig goes this year.  That can be a good thing as well as a bad thing.  Maybe in the future, once technology becomes more developed they'll lower the amount of instancing in the game, who knows?  I must say though, graphics are NEVER everything in a game; at least they shouldn't be.  There was a time when graphics would make a significant difference to me, but now, I think that is kind of a narrow minded way of thinking in a sense.  I would take a lower grade graphically developed game that was thoroughly accomplished in everything else versus a game with insane graphics and rather underdeveloped other aspects any day of the week.  

I'm not going to let the fact that there is instancing be the sole reason I don't get into AOC.  There are many other more important factors than just this aspect solely such as....well, fun!  If it's fun enough, you bet I'll be right there with the rest of you as I'm sure many many others will be.  But if there was some sort of scale, -1 to AOC for instancing because sandbox is just simply better in terms of gameplay.  Maybe it won't be in the final version lol.

Very well put post; I agree. Instancing in an MMORPG isn't an instant game over for me, but it's definetily something that takes away tons of immersive points (which to me = fun). I mean it's acceptable in a game like Guild Wars because theirs no monthly fee. It's also a different type of game. And, in reference to Anarch Online, the instancing done there was for missions. The regular world and the cities were all accessable by everyone and everyone was in the same world. I'm correct, yes? My memory might be a little fuzzy, but I don't recall AO having different instanced world zones. That game was great; it used instances in the right way, and it also had a vibrant and interesting world to run around in... AoC should have that in my opinion.