First of all let me state that i havent played AoC before. All data i collect is from reading forum posts or from the info i get from people who play it who are part of the guild i am in in World of Warcraft ( and who are gonna switch over). I didnt play allot of MMORPG's in my gaminglive, but the ones i tried are Lotro / Vanguard ( retired both ) and still playing World of Warcraft ( but not really having that much fun these days ). So i never encountered a game with "instancing" or when a zone gets full it copy''s itself.

I also didnt read about it annywhere till you guys brought it up, so i started to think about it while i was reading all you guys comments, atleast the normal ones...  

Definition of instancing for me is: You have a zone that can have like a few hundred(200?) people in it , if more people want in they get transferred to a copy of that zone.  A zone for me is ( transelated to world of warcraft ) not like Outland and Azeroth, but more like The Barrens is one zone and Winterspring is one zone.  Reading about AoC it has dozens of zones, so lets say 25+ and from my understanding, huge ones.

With that in mind it doesnt sound that bad to me. AoC has lesser servers than a game like world of warcraft ( if that info is correct), so we have more people running arround on each server. The last thing i personaly want is have a zone with over 400+ people in it fighting over several quest mobs like i experienced in wow. If thats your way of having fun, i would say seek dr. phil. Yet again thats just my personal opinion. 200 people in a zone is still allot of folks to get in contact with and if you group up and the only think you have to do is a chat command to get in the same instance... that posibily cant be something that would kill the gameplay / experience / fun in the game else you need a .

PvP wise, it can suck if you are chasing someone and he moves to another zone, but on the other hand that zone has to be full and the same dude should be nr 200 entering that zone. Doesnt seem like a big chance that would actually happen. And you still have like what over a 100+ more to kill in that zone. Goodluck with that.

For cities i also dont see a huge problem. I rather have a little free movement than standing in trade district with over 1000 people.

For me personal i never look at how many people there are in a region/zone i am in. Over time you will have a nr. of people you hang arround with and do isntances with. Again if the only thing you have to do , when its needed, to do a chat command to join them in the same zone... i really cant give an ars.

And i really wonder if some people go deeper in this instancing thing and think about it instead of just saying: this is bad. Right, you got a brain... use it. I aint saying i got it all figured out and that i am right and you are wrong, but is this really something you would cancel your account for? And a gamebreaker, you move from zone to zone and you still meet people, whats so horrible about that? i really cant see it.

Again i dont have any experience with it , but it really doesnt sound bad to me. 

Cheers.

Qdancer 
( not a fanboy )

Originally posted by markoraos

Well, what did you expect?

Funcom practically invented instancing, so this is what they do. And we have to thank them for giving that to the MMORPG genre.

If you manage to detect the subtle irony in the above paragraph you get 1 (one) internet.

I give you a point, but in AO I feel free because of large and huge areas, really great even it"s an old game. In AOC : small zones + invisible walls + instanced.

If you like it, buy it.

I prefer large areas . That's my taste. Large areas, lot of features (crafting from the 1rst levl , housing, large zones : cf DAOC etc) AOC isn't for me at all.

Imo a lot of people who preordered the game without testing it will be disappointed, they can't imagine what AOC is. To qdancer; forget Lotro, wow and vanguard. (I'm serious)

Only 1 ex: Khemi, Old Tarantia are far from being SW, Bree or Khal, very far. Don't expect too much.  Have fun with combo system, musics are great, chars are great, that's all.

You say small zones while i read on other forums and com sites that the zones are huge and could take up to 15-30 min to cross one.

Invisible walls, could u give an example. For example ( sorry i dont have any other real material ) in wow there are always like 1 or maybe 2 ways to enter another place/zone/region. The rest is surrounded with walls or an ocean you drown in, most of it that is. It is you have open landscapes from zone 1 to 2 and get blocked half way?

Q

So many fan boys around here...

The fact  is that the instances killed the game for me! I was expecting (so much =/) the game to recover the immersion I had while playing old games like L2, but as I can see, it's not gonna happen!!

Personally, nothing compares to a  full and enjoyable world, where I can take my horse and walk away and always see the horizon... or chase until the end a fleeing enemy!

I totally agree with this statement. It's sad because I was dying to play.

wow i must say im disapointed, to the ppl yelling that WoW does it and every other game i dont really know where are you coming from apart from the raid zones and dungeons there are only three instances Azeroth, Kalimdor and Outlands + Silvermoon, and when you zone into those areas you dont end up in Azeroth #1 and your friend ends up in Azeroth #2 its a single instance, if AoC is indeed doing this they cant count on me not playing it, like someone said many posts ago,

stuff like "guys need help being ganked at <insert zone name> #12" , "ill be right there im on #5" is just LOL sorry i dont have to cather to these things in any other MMO nothing in AoC is that good that will make me play it under those mechanics.

Originally posted by Qdancer

You say small zones while i read on other forums and com sites that the zones are huge and could take up to 15-30 min to cross one.

Invisible walls, could u give an example. For example ( sorry i dont have any other real material ) in wow there are always like 1 or maybe 2 ways to enter another place/zone/region. The rest is surrounded with walls or an ocean you drown in, most of it that is. It is you have open landscapes from zone 1 to 2 and get blocked half way?

Q

Originally posted by Amegashie

Originally posted by Qdancer

You say small zones while i read on other forums and com sites that the zones are huge and could take up to 15-30 min to cross one.

Invisible walls, could u give an example. For example ( sorry i dont have any other real material ) in wow there are always like 1 or maybe 2 ways to enter another place/zone/region. The rest is surrounded with walls or an ocean you drown in, most of it that is. It is you have open landscapes from zone 1 to 2 and get blocked half way?

Q

Zones are large and there are no invisible walls. Anyone telling otherwise ( about the OB content anyway ) is flat out lying.

ill use acheron ruins as a example there are lots of places in that zone where you see a mob and go to run up a hill etc to it to suddenly bam stopped by a non existant wall and then have to take the pathway round,  now if it was a mountain fair enough but its a molehill if that.

Originally posted by thamighty213

 

Originally posted by Amegashie

Originally posted by Qdancer

You say small zones while i read on other forums and com sites that the zones are huge and could take up to 15-30 min to cross one.

Invisible walls, could u give an example. For example ( sorry i dont have any other real material ) in wow there are always like 1 or maybe 2 ways to enter another place/zone/region. The rest is surrounded with walls or an ocean you drown in, most of it that is. It is you have open landscapes from zone 1 to 2 and get blocked half way?

Q

Zones are large and there are no invisible walls. Anyone telling otherwise ( about the OB content anyway ) is flat out lying.

Zones are fairly large but there are tons and i mean tons of invisible walls right through the game.

 

ill use acheron ruins as a example there are lots of places in that zone where you see a mob and go to run up a hill etc to it to suddenly bam stopped by a non existant wall and then have to take the pathway round,  now if it was a mountain fair enough but its a molehill if that.

Acheron ruins is a poor example considering it's on Tortage Island, that island is supposed to be linear, and everything in it. 

Originally posted by rav3n2

wow i must say im disapointed, to the ppl yelling that WoW does it and every other game i dont really know where are you coming from apart from the raid zones and dungeons there are only three instances Azeroth, Kalimdor and Outlands + Silvermoon, and when you zone into those areas you dont end up in Azeroth #1 and your friend ends up in Azeroth #2 its a single instance, if AoC is indeed doing this they cant count on me not playing it, like someone said many posts ago,

stuff like "guys need help being ganked at <insert zone name> #12" , "ill be right there im on #5" is just LOL sorry i dont have to cather to these things in any other MMO nothing in AoC is that good that will make me play it under those mechanics.

 

Originally posted by waverat81

 

Originally posted by rav3n2

wow i must say im disapointed, to the ppl yelling that WoW does it and every other game i dont really know where are you coming from apart from the raid zones and dungeons there are only three instances Azeroth, Kalimdor and Outlands + Silvermoon, and when you zone into those areas you dont end up in Azeroth #1 and your friend ends up in Azeroth #2 its a single instance, if AoC is indeed doing this they cant count on me not playing it, like someone said many posts ago,

stuff like "guys need help being ganked at <insert zone name> #12" , "ill be right there im on #5" is just LOL sorry i dont have to cather to these things in any other MMO nothing in AoC is that good that will make me play it under those mechanics.

 

Why weren't you and your friends already coordinated and in the same instance in the first place?

 

 

well geez i dont know lemme see:

a) because i just logged in and was somewhere else

b) because i was doing something else at the time my friend was ganked

c) because i was picking up a quest from somewhere else

d) because i went to sell my trash to the vendor in town

.... just a sample of why not,  maybe i shouldnt have wasted my time on such idiotic reply but there you go.

Instance is actually a faulty description of what AoC does with the zones...

Its more like server population relocation than instancing in a Guild wars kind of description..

1..When the game has been out a while, players WILL spread out eventually, and there will be no more Tortage 1.2.3 etc..Just like in EQ2 where you hardly ever see any duplicate areas any longer part from when there is an expansion and all players cramp around these new zones..

With this system everyone will get fluid gameplay instead of having 2000 players trying to move inside Tortage, wich woudn't be possible..

So..

/junker

tortage is NOT a city...its a newbie hub

major cities are NOT instanced...

thank you

Originally posted by BrianMMO

This game is totally instanced. Even the CITIES are instanced.. EVEN THE CITIES :p

That's like so lame.. it's like "I am at the blacksmith" and another guy "Me too. Can't see you" :p
It's like Guild Wars (ok, not that extreme, but pretty close to it).. at least I am not willing to pay a monthly fee for a game that has instances all over the place. Everywhere.

What's the point of PVPing in instanced zones? If he is running away into the next zone and you are right after him and you both end up in totally different instances.. omg, that's so pointless.
Or if you go out with your guild into a zone and everyone ends up in a different instance.. so.. dumb.

Funcom's excuse for instances is that their graphics are so god-like that you can't handle it with computers nowadays.. my ass! Funcom considers ~200 players in one zone as "massive".. wow.. that's lame. I wonder how other MMORPGs manage to not use instances ALL the time. There are like a trillion games out that have no instances at all. I can accept instances in dungeons or special zones.. but EVERYWHERE? That's like so-not-MASSIVELY.

Oh well, anyways.. my Age of Conan order has been canceled.

Everyone who really wants to play a massively multiplayer online RPG should look for something elese, because Age of Conan is far away from being one. It's like a NextGen-Guild Wars with 1-2 addons :)

Did I mention that the CITIES are instanced too? :)

 

I thought this when I first read about Everquest 2. I held your same view of instanced zones until I actually played the game. It wasn't like Guild Wars where you are completely alone. Its instanced so you don't have 100 players in one small zone trying to camp one mob. However, if you want to go to the more populated zone, you just simply switch to it and ta da problem solved.