Originally posted by nariusseldon

Secondly, it is a  freaking GAME. It is entertainment. If i want challenge, I go to work. And guess what, the marketing is NOT listening to drivels like this. Thank GOD that instance has become the norm.

I LOVE this response! It says it all man... "If I want a challenge I'll go to work" Very well said. Perhaps the people who like to sneak around, mine nodes under people's noses and steal there loot, and think this is challenging should quit their care bear job (or GET a job first, then quit it) and get a real job, something challenging, engaging and more fulfilling than burger-flipping or table bussing. Gee, I hope I didn't offend anyone with my care bear comment.    ;)

"Laugh it up Bullwinkle!"

Originally posted by tarkin1980

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by tarkin1980

Personally I can't think of a single positive aspect of instancing. It's just plain boring and a short cut to cater to care bear whiners who are too weak/passive to grab what they want in a true, open MMO world. Everyone has the exact same chance to get the boss kill, or whatever. You lost it to the other group? Well Boo-Hoo? I guess you just didn't cut it. Maybe it's time to stop whining and actually PRACTICE, instead of expecting to get everything served on an instanced silver plate. I'm totally against the idea that being unskilled and generally sucky should be rewarded in games. I'm not saying I wont play a game that has instances, but it IS a huge turn off. Bleh.

 

That is the most stupid reasoning I have read.

First, if you play EQ, you know that you ROTATE, and waiting in line for boss kill. So how are you going to practice being patient?

Secondly, it is a  freaking GAME. It is entertainment. If i want challenge, I go to work. And guess what, the marketing is NOT listening to drivels like this. Thank GOD that instance has become the norm.

 

Oh yes, thank GOD that instances, among other horrors, have become the norm, so that we nowadays don't have a single decent MMO on the market. I'm fully aware that the market doesn't listen to people like me, because we argue for challenging games with immersion and longevity, not instant gratification which has sadly also become the norm of MMO's. I'm fully aware that I'm fighting a losing battle. I've been doing that since every kiddo got an internet connection at home and began to destroy all that's sacred to a true RPG'er (and gamer in general, just look at what happened to Counter-Strike after ppl outside of universities started to get access to the internet...). I'm a very old school kind of RPG'er/Gamer and I hate instant gratification with a passion, and thats what instances really are all about, IMHO. Being 100% guaranteed success only because you paid for the game. I just cannot fathom how anyone above 15 years of age can have FUN in a game like that.

This is some amazingly incoherent nonsense.  I'm guessing you never really got far with Everquest's glorious non-instanced dungeons.  If you had, you would know that there were fifty major drawbacks for every one good thing about them.  But yeah, maybe you experienced EQ's launch as a learned adult at the ripe old age of nineteen.  I hope the "kiddies" didn't ruin it for you.  As for modern stuff, I don't need to guess that you know absolutely nothing about the raid content in today's MMO's.  Here's a hint.  The only thing you need to fight, wizened sage, is the urge to shove that cocaine up into your nose.  I'm really scared for you if you came to these conclusions while clean.

100% guaranteed success, right.  Instant gratification.  Man.  True RPG'er is my favorite.  True RPG'er.  The sole arbiter of "RPG'ing".  I wasn't aware that RPG could be used as a verb, but I'm not a wizened old man like you.  Y'know, I just realized that I can pull these terms out of my ass too, and just like you, I can apply them with zero context.  That way, nobody would know what I'm talking about, either.  Here, let me try.

If there's one thing I love in life, it's a good burger.  I don't mean the crappy fast food stuff.  I mean a gourmet burger with 100% guaranteed success sauce and freshly sliced instant gratification.  Of course, as a true RPG'er, I recognize that a good burger starts with a good, lean cut of immersion and longevity.  Most people don't want that nowadays, though, which makes me weep on forums.  Now that every kiddy has a George Foreman internet connection in their bedroom, they've begun to destroy all that is sacred in the world.  Only one man can save us now.  Superman.  Superburgerman.

The Instance vs Open world debate is and always will be ongoing. Maybe someone should create a game - Instance Wars. One side has only instances and the other side open world. They all meet in one area and compete in PvP for some uber objective and rewards. Then the bragging rights can be justified to some degree.

It comes down to marketing and game preference. Game devs want to increase and sustain subscribers. They know that players have a choice in playing MMOs now. They aren't saddled with UO or Everquest or Meridian 59 anymore.  MMO veterans either have an established group /guild they play with already so they generally like the open world design. They don't have to worry about building relationships in general. What about the huge popularity of console gamers? They heard about WoW and signed on in drovs. They loved the causal game style and want to keep it that way. They lose interest rapidly when content is not there because a host of other players have farmed it dry. Why pay for a game when you can't play it? Hardcore gamers say this is part of the design of MMOs and it should be endured chalking it up as "challenge". Developers receiving feedback soon learned that waiting in line like a grocery store for a specific monster which drops a coveted item once in a few weeks is not fun.

Instances help give players the ability to play the game on their terms.  Can it be overdone? Heck yes. Waiting for loading screens is not fun either. Especially when you are simply going into a tavern or apartment or changing your feat tree!

Modern MMOs suck in so many aspects that it's even boring to write about it. Instancing being one of the big issues yes.

I agree with the OP. I am pro-instance. Admittedly I can find fun in both, but if given a choice I would choose little to no instancing.

If the MMO is that good, they will provide enough content, mobs, and just plain "things to do" other than be bottle-necked into a linear questline that every class, race, and faction MUST do.

I like the open feeling. I like running into random people adventuring. Being benevolent. watching other players and groups. Maybe learn something from their strategy.
Yes, I like trains. heh. I like natural "hangouts" , like outside of a castle zone or just inside.

Wait,..am I an ol'school EQ fanboy? I guess so. I love the new games too but I guess it IS instancing that makes it all feel that much more different. Oh and the stupid quest bubbles above npc's heads,..lets not go there,.weeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Originally posted by Sovrath

Did you ever think that the graphics of UO didn't put as much of a stress on the '97 technology as compared to games today? Granted those computers were less powerful but are the computers today exponentially more powerful compared to what is needed to render everything? 

No, because servers don't deal with graphics. At all.

The OP is 100% right.

To this day I maintain that the Darkness Falls dungeon in DAOC was the best dungeon ever made in an MMO. It wasn't instanced, supported all levels of PVE from level 20-50, raid PVE, and solo/group/raid PVP, all in a single dungeon. It was amazing.

Originally posted by tarkin1980

Personally I can't think of a single positive aspect of instancing. It's just plain boring and a short cut to cater to care bear whiners who are too weak/passive to grab what they want in a true, open MMO world. Everyone has the exact same chance to get the boss kill, or whatever. You lost it to the other group? Well Boo-Hoo? I guess you just didn't cut it. Maybe it's time to stop whining and actually PRACTICE, instead of expecting to get everything served on an instanced silver plate. I'm totally against the idea that being unskilled and generally sucky should be rewarded in games. I'm not saying I wont play a game that has instances, but it IS a huge turn off. Bleh.

Here's another way to think about it.    Your way, I have to compete against my fellow gamers to complete a quest.    That's fine, if that's the kind of game you want.

However, for me, I'd prefer to cooperate with my fellow gamers to complete a quest.

Two very different approaches, but neither one is necessarily wrong.

For myself, I'd rather have every specific kill quest instanced, and the rest not.    And people, what's with all the name-calling.   Ya really gotta watch the 'you-don't-think-like-I-do-so-you're-an-idiot' attitudes.

Originally posted by SwampRob

Originally posted by tarkin1980

Personally I can't think of a single positive aspect of instancing. It's just plain boring and a short cut to cater to care bear whiners who are too weak/passive to grab what they want in a true, open MMO world. Everyone has the exact same chance to get the boss kill, or whatever. You lost it to the other group? Well Boo-Hoo? I guess you just didn't cut it. Maybe it's time to stop whining and actually PRACTICE, instead of expecting to get everything served on an instanced silver plate. I'm totally against the idea that being unskilled and generally sucky should be rewarded in games. I'm not saying I wont play a game that has instances, but it IS a huge turn off. Bleh.

 

Here's another way to think about it.    Your way, I have to compete against my fellow gamers to complete a quest.    That's fine, if that's the kind of game you want.

However, for me, I'd prefer to cooperate with my fellow gamers to complete a quest.

Two very different approaches, but neither one is necessarily wrong.

For myself, I'd rather have every specific kill quest instanced, and the rest not.    And people, what's with all the name-calling.   Ya really gotta watch the 'you-don't-think-like-I-do-so-you're-an-idiot' attitudes.

I'm sorry if I've been calling names, I just get a little worked up when I think about how low online gaming has sunk. I think that goes for a lot of older gamers who have seen their favourite games go down the drain. I know a lot of people don't agree in the least but that's fine. I'm not calling WoW players idiots, I just don't think WoW-like games are a good representation of what role playing is.

I'm in no way against cooperation in games. I just have a kind of role-playing view on how games should work, ie I don't want them to be cooperative by default. I want to be able to do anything I feel like (and live with the consequences), and I want others to be able to stop me, and vice versa. For me, that's a core part of a RPG. That's why instancing is such a problem for me. If you take RPG out of MMORPG, then I have no problem with instancing. (But I guess you'd have to take M out as well). Then you'd be left with a game like DDO, which I think is a fantastic and fun game, but it's not massive, and it's not a role playing game. It's an online, multiplayer, cooperative dungeon crawler game.

Originally posted by MortalStrike

Originally posted by Sovrath

Did you ever think that the graphics of UO didn't put as much of a stress on the '97 technology as compared to games today? Granted those computers were less powerful but are the computers today exponentially more powerful compared to what is needed to render everything? 

 

No, because servers don't deal with graphics. At all.

 

The OP is 100% right.

 

To this day I maintain that the Darkness Falls dungeon in DAOC was the best dungeon ever made in an MMO. It wasn't instanced, supported all levels of PVE from level 20-50, raid PVE, and solo/group/raid PVP, all in a single dungeon. It was amazing.

 

 

I prefered the PvP servers in WOW where every single zone was Darkness Falls.    No neeed to shoehorn everyone into one dungeon to PvP.    You do know the reason they made DF was to make it easier to find a fight, right?  

I personally prefer open worlds but I also prefer games that do not force me to raid for gear. when I came into this genre, I expected fully open worlds where my friends and I could roam the world together in the same zone full of other people. We did not expect entire towns to be 'instanced'.

I do not think something like a Town should be instanced if anyway possible I'd like to see MMOs avoid that

Originally posted by gillvane1

I like open world dungeons. You get to run into other players in the dungeon, which makes the world seem alive, and players can help each otehr, like rez a party that is wiped, and you can recruit new party members in the dungeon, without leaving an instance.

On the other hand, I want the boss mob instanced, so I don't have to camp it or wait in line to kill it.

agree but I'd much rather make it so everyone present can help kill the Boss and then share the loot (roll, whatever). That would be truly massive multiplayer too me. WAR has the right idea with "public quests" I would say

All forms of instancing suck.

Originally posted by Netzoko

First off, don't give me that BS about how instancing is a must for servers. 1997 UO had a massive, seamless world supporting just as many players as current MMOs. Yeah, nineteen ninety fucking seven.

Now, developers have realized a short-cut that we're all too stupid to fight against....instancing. This short-cut has ruined what would have been great MMOs.

_____________________

Age of Conan: Hyped to hell then dumbed down for the Xbox 360. The worst, however, is that fact that every zone has multiple copies, on multiple servers. Way to break up a massively multiplayer game, right? Why have servers then? If every zone is broken up, why have separate servers? It makes no sense. Epic siege battles? Laff. Instancing ruined this game.

Pirates of the Burning Sea: This game could have been amazing. Imagine sailing the seas and docking at ports for trade, or conquering if wanted. Explore the many islands of the Caribbean? Sorry. The reality is that you enjoy one big loading screen of small environments. Everything is instanced. Missions, sea battles, ports.... All separated by loading screens. You cant walk around islands, your boat... anything.

 

_____________________

 

It's sad when games plummet and the devs sit and pick their noses wondering what went wrong.

EVE (one of the few mmos that shows its player numbers without fear) had more than 55 pcs connected together in 2004.

http://www.stackless.com/Members/rmtew/code/PyCon2006-StacklessEvePresentation.zip/download

With the above cluster setup (which is very expensive) and a lot of python you can host many thousands of players in a seamless world, while splitting the world load in instances and loading screens every time, is lot easier-cheaper and does not require much code optimization and administration.

Also, developers able to create a seamless world 11 years ago in 128 mbyte pentium mmx servers with  features like world inventory, asking npcs about other player locations, nested inventory, recalling without loading and many more, are not easy to find anymore and if they are they may prefer not to make games.

some mmos overlooked the seamless world (the main definition of an mmorpg imo) but i also don't buy cheap excuses like graphics and character customizations as a reason for world instancing.

Vanguard is another proof that a seamless world can be viable with today's graphics but unfortunately it was not as optimised as it should be when it launched.

Instancing is ok when used with moderation and logic.

Wow does it decently well. There is this seamless world and there are this pve-pvp instances. tBut overall it is still a seamless world . you dont have players spreaded over goldshire1, goldshire2 or goldshire34.

AOC overdid it when making the FULL WORLD instanced.  it killed the MM aspect of the game for many.

for me;

instancing is ok when used to provide pve content

instancing is not okay when used to fragment the game world.

I think instancing has its merits. It is nice to not have to camp spawns and all that. It can really ruin the immersion factor when you're out in the middle of a desert about to raid the long lost tomb of the pharoah, a place where no other people should rightly be, and yet you run into a whole group of people just like you. It makes you and your little adventure just feel like another common thing, which is exactly the kind of thing we should try to avoid when making games.

But I feel that instances are more of a patch up job, which cover up the real problem. That problem is not open worlds, but the whole spawn and camping system, which is the real obsolete mechanic in question here. It's just as immersion breaking to see a bunch of people in the middle of the desert waiting outside the instance entrance for the rest of their group, for example.

However, we have to take certain liberties in the interest of gameplay and fun, of course. We don't need everything to be ultra realistic where you kill the pharoah mummy and then no one else ever gets that quest line again.

The only real solution is creativity. We need developers who can make things believable, make things interesting and make things fun. So far I don't see a lot of creativity in the MMORPG genre, at least not to the extent of single player games. Take a look at Katamari Damacy for example, the game is off the deep end compared to the standard fare mmo content. I'm not suggesting in any way that we need balls rolling around picking up objects in our dungeons, I'm just citing it as an example. I don't see a lot of similar creativity in MMO's. We need more of that, instead of settling for the same old.

I do not mind the instancing one bit, Mind you i am not logged onto 6 other MMO at the same time either like most of these i don't give a shit PKers are.

SO i agree on the way MMO games are going towards Single player type of play. Anything the Developers do to get ride of or maker harder for them it's AOK by me.

More instances please.

Well I love instancing in games that know how to do it, it keeps the public retards out of your game.

I see no use in perstistant worlds in PVE games if you want to play with friend group up with your friends no ones stopping you, but to force everyone into one large pug (which is what persistance is) is not giving player the option. When you unwillingly force people into one large PUG which is what persistance is, it no longer becomes PVE, its becomes PVPVE.

Persistance only makes sense in PVP in PVE theres tricks and things that can get around the problem of nobody being around, theres is more drawbacks in persitant world PVE ie- graphic limiations, content limitations, gameplay limitiations which do more harm than the good. So whats all this good stuff that comes out of persistant worlds? dont tell me is the emmersion of seing some random guy run by you that youll ingore. Youre going to gimp the PVE experience just for that?

Guild Wars is a fine example where instancing works, the zones are large enough that youre rarely loading screen and theres plenty of people to form parties with if you get lonely, all with out persitance and gameplay graphics and content excelled as a result.

Id like to think of Persistant worlds as free for all pve, and just like free for all PVP its usually filled with griefers. Theres no reason to add a persistant world to PVE content which should be single player or co-operative experience, the point being that you have that option to choose to play the PVE content by yourself or with your invited friends, but not forced into a public PVE free for all called persistant world.

Originally posted by bigtime102

Well I love instancing in games that know how to do it, it keeps the public retards out of your game.

I see no use in perstistant worlds in PVE games if you want to play with friend group up with your friends no ones stopping you, but to force everyone into one large pug (which is what persistance is) is not giving player the option. When you unwillingly force people into one large PUG which is what persistance is, it no longer becomes PVE, its becomes PVPVE.

Persistance only makes sense in PVP in PVE theres tricks and things that can get around the problem of nobody being around, theres is more drawbacks in persitant world PVE ie- graphic limiations, content limitations, gameplay limitiations which do more harm than the good. So whats all this good stuff that comes out of persistant worlds? dont tell me is the emmersion of seing some random guy run by you that youll ingore. Youre going to gimp the PVE experience just for that?

Guild Wars is a fine example where instancing works, the zones are large enough that youre rarely loading screen and theres plenty of people to form parties with if you get lonely, all with out persitance and gameplay graphics and content excelled as a result.

Id like to think of Persistant worlds as free for all pve, and just like free for all PVP its usually filled with griefers. Theres no reason to add a persistant world to PVE content which should be single player or co-operative experience, the point being that you have that option to choose to play the PVE content by yourself or with your invited friends, but not forced into a public PVE free for all called persistant world.

You want a reason why Instances mess with PVE? Well how about Impact? Making a name for yourself? Wouldn't it be cool if your town is being attacked by mobs and you run outside and defend it? Then afterwards you are awarded for helping defend your town from attack.

How about a game where you see a guy gettinfg swarmed by mobs and you jump in and save his life? Why is this not a good thing?

Yes guild wars was fun but look at GW. you run around in instances with a few other people. It's a coop RPG and it claims to be nothing more. What about walking around town and being able to see the cool equipment they have on or nice decorations? In City of Heroes we had costume contests in Town all the time. Instances ruin stuff like that. Heck, all the time I'd click on a hero and read his Bio.

What about playing a new MMO with a friend only to find out you split apart by an instance? This wasn;t fun for us when we encountered our first instanced MMO

I would like to see developers challenge themselves to make true dynamic content. I'd like to be able to enter a dungeon and make new friends while I'm there. Screw sitting around in town "LFM 1 Tank!!!!". Let me go into a dungeon and meet others as I go. People claim they are so casual yet they are content with sitting around in town spamming local for team members for groups. you guys kidding me how is that fun?

Queues be darned, I like open worlds.

yea i dont like that Guild Wars has instancing and that you can only see players in towns or outposts BUT i've grown accustomed to that sort of gameplay and i've been playing it for 2 years. Some things like this aren't good but most of the people that don't eventually get used to it and actually dont mind it that much

It's the whole formula for MMORPG these days.  Instancing, grinding, ganking.  They all pretty much go hand in hand, and there is a reason behind everyone of them.  The gaming industry didn't arrive at the World of Warcraft model randomly. 

WOW is the end product.  The only game I am waiting for is Diablo 3, since all MMORPGs are failures.