Instances have a lot of myths amongst playerbase---->

1. Players think Instances save Server CPU

This is false. Instances actually are more expensive server-side because of increased memory consumption. So, the only way to leverage against this costs they add on more servers to handle the instances. So true, they can obviously split the playerbase and spread the bandwidth around but it means paying more for additional Server hardware

2. Players think they need instances to avoid 'kill steals' etc

This is pretty much false. Games like EVE will have HUGE worlds and have it setup so you can talk to an Agent, get a mission, and have the dynamic activities spawned in the world itself. Now, EVE still has resources you still might squabble over with other players true elsewhere- but this was intentional

3. Players think Instances make it so their clients 'magically' run better

This is false. The client is indifferent to whether the server is Instanced / Seamless. Now, the only issue you might have in a seamless world perhaps you'd see way more players in a concentrated area for events and so forth. This is the only additional clientside load you can possibly have

4. Often, Players ask how their Raids and such will work

Too me, it is not special for me to kill a Boss like Onyxia over and over. Instead, I'd prefer to defend a town or something from NPCs. You know, actually help my community. When players go into Instances, they are not helping anyone but themselves. I'm paying for a Virtual world here- not for a portal into an FPS. I want a huge immersive world! Not some game that has muyltiple parallel universes where my actions have no impact on the 'real world'

Originally posted by Karbonoid

I'm going to say instanced, because I'd rather have an instanced world that works, than a seamless one that runs like Vanguard. At the end of the day it simply isn't the most important issue.

Sure, it's immersive to run around in a huge open world, but how immersive is it to stand in line to kill a rapidly respawning boss in that open world? And how immersive is it when the whole of creation grinds to a halt because of lag? If you can suspend disbelief for that  and the other problems with a seamless world, then you should be able to handle some instancing as well.

Stand in line? Who stands in line! Kill them and take the boss for yourself.
Also, in a seamless world, a boss shouldn't always spawn in the same place. It should spawn randomly, around a certain area. Say he's the boss of an area called "TheSwamp", he should be set to spawn randomly, anywhere around that swamp.

Mobs should also not run back to the spot they spawned to. If someone pulled the mob a bit, and moved it. Then that's it. It should stay there. This adds fun and diversion to the game, you get parties of players killing their way through the area (gaining XP) whilst searching for the boss. Then when you finally find the boss, killing the boss is quite often the easy part. ;)

As for dungeons though, their should be a boss room. Where the boss spawns along with a handful of pretty tough sub-bosses. Guilds, and large groups of friends go here to take down hopefully the boss, if not a sub-boss or two. But obviously prepared to fight (or heck, maybe agree not to fight and negotiate with eachother, who takes down what) another party of players out to do the same thing. Outside the boss room, a sub-boss should spawn randomly now and then, this is for soloers / small XP parties to kill.

God, this is the reason that I still play Legend of Mir, in this day and age. For me, they've got the right idea, it's perfect for me. PvP actually has a damn meaning to it. You're fighting FOR something, and you really do hate the people you're fighting.

I could say more, but I want to keep it readable, so I'll stop here.

Originally posted by Adam1902

Mobs should also not run back to the spot they spawned to. If someone pulled the mob a bit, and moved it. Then that's it. It should stay there. This adds fun and diversion to the game, you get parties of players killing their way through the area (gaining XP) whilst searching for the boss. Then when you finally find the boss, killing the boss is quite often the easy part. ;)

Eventually MMOs will catch up to where UO has been since the turn of the century.

EDIT: Great post, PatchDay! L( 

Originally posted by Adam1902

 

Mobs should also not run back to the spot they spawned to. If someone pulled the mob a bit, and moved it. Then that's it. It should stay there. This adds fun and diversion to the game, you get parties of players killing their way through the area (gaining XP) whilst searching for the boss. Then when you finally find the boss, killing the boss is quite often the easy part. ;)

No what it adds to the game is dragging bosses to the noobie areas or bind points so they kill all the payers that log in. It also results in player frustration when a fast mob chases them down and kills them because they can't break aggro. You'll find the reason most things are the way they are is brcause most of the alternate mechanics have been exploited in the past. Wandering mobs are a good idea but unfortunately the AI pathing in most MMOs is so poor they wind up getting stuck in terrain features.

Originally posted by Yamota

Huge seamless world, no doubt. I hate instancing in MMORPGs, defeats the whole purpose of playing in a virtual, persistent world.

I simply don't get it. I'm no more annoyed by instancing in games than I am by the log on screen when I first start the game.

Unless you have to instance every 5 minutes, it seems like you have add if you're annoyed by it. Go get a cold drink while the instance is loading, geez.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

Originally posted by Adam1902

 

Mobs should also not run back to the spot they spawned to. If someone pulled the mob a bit, and moved it. Then that's it. It should stay there. This adds fun and diversion to the game, you get parties of players killing their way through the area (gaining XP) whilst searching for the boss. Then when you finally find the boss, killing the boss is quite often the easy part. ;)

 

No what it adds to the game is dragging bosses to the noobie areas or bind points so they kill all the payers that log in. It also results in player frustration when a fast mob chases them down and kills them because they can't break aggro. You'll find the reason most things are the way they are is brcause most of the alternate mechanics have been exploited in the past. Wandering mobs are a good idea but unfortunately the AI pathing in most MMOs is so poor they wind up getting stuck in terrain features.

Train! That's fun, it should be put back into games.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

Originally posted by Adam1902

 

Mobs should also not run back to the spot they spawned to. If someone pulled the mob a bit, and moved it. Then that's it. It should stay there. This adds fun and diversion to the game, you get parties of players killing their way through the area (gaining XP) whilst searching for the boss. Then when you finally find the boss, killing the boss is quite often the easy part. ;)

 

No what it adds to the game is dragging bosses to the noobie areas or bind points so they kill all the payers that log in. It also results in player frustration when a fast mob chases them down and kills them because they can't break aggro. You'll find the reason most things are the way they are is brcause most of the alternate mechanics have been exploited in the past. Wandering mobs are a good idea but unfortunately the AI pathing in most MMOs is so poor they wind up getting stuck in terrain features.

There's lots of ways to prevent it from getting stuck, in lots of 3D MMOs if a mob is running into terrain for a second or two, he just teleports through it.

And if a strong mob has been lured to a bindpoint or newbie zone killing paying players (OH NO! that made me giggle :) ) then sorry, but it's tough shit. The community need to work to get it killed. Sorry, but MMOs are not solo games. Events like this are bound to happen, but it's more entertaining rather than frustrating.

That's what's killing MMOs today. Little whiney babys "I pay money, I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO DIE BECAUSE OF SOMEONE ELSE!!!", bugger off.

Not directed personally at you, but that's how I feel.

EDIT: Oh, and newbies shouldn't have their own special little town, or spawning place. They should be spawned in a main town when they create their character, along with higher level players. If newbies are confined to some kind of "newbie town" when they first start out, they're BOUND to get singled out and griefed the shit out of.

EDIT2: That post shown how MMO players nowadays are fed from a spoon, and random events like that cannot happen. People playing one of todays MMOs wouldn't know what to do in a situation like this. They'd probably just log off or cry at a GM or something. What people do, is team up and take it down. The whole lot of you in the town it's been lured to. Oh god, I'll shut up now. I'm still shaking my head at that.

Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to see too many AAA MMORPGs with seamless worlds in the near future.  Seems like they're all heading towards heavy instancing.  The "MMORPG" is only there to sell more boxes.

The worst part, is that even with all the instances, the combat is still weak, the quests are still weak, and the game play is pretty much exactly the same.  So, I have to ask, what the hell is the point of using instancing in the first place?

Seamless, huge worlds, are really not a good idea right now, unless you have the resources to back you up to get the game ready for a good launch. It's unrealistic, and I think companies realize that instancing is needed. However, we need huge zones of instancing, rather than medium-sized ones that we see today. EverQuest II is a good example of huge zones, but with instancing involved. It also makes it easier to run the game, as well, and I think these are the reasons instancing isn't going anywhere.

However, if you have the resources and the time to do seamless, then I think that's a good way to go. It would be awesome if that was the case, maybe Blizzard's next MMO will be seamless.. who knows. SOE, Microsoft and Blizzard are the only companies that really have that choice right now, though. 

Adam1902, you may not realize it but games are created to be fun. Letting the 1% griefer population ruin the fun of the 99% normal population is retarded.

I like both depending on my mood.  If I feel like getting quick into quest and dungeon crawling, than a purely instanced experience like Hellgate worked for me.  But if another day I felt like exploring, and living in a persistent world full of danger just around the corner than, than I play Fallout 3.  LOL

Okay I know it's single-player, but I really haven't found a persistent world, or even a huge zoned multiple persistent world mmo that I've liked for too long... I'm still searching for that "one" that will grab me for years to come.

Originally posted by Tatum

Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to see too many AAA MMORPGs with seamless worlds in the near future.  Seems like they're all heading towards heavy instancing.  The "MMORPG" is only there to sell more boxes.

The worst part, is that even with all the instances, the combat is still weak, the quests are still weak, and the game play is pretty much exactly the same.  So, I have to ask, what the hell is the point of using instancing in the first place?

Sadly, I think you're correct.
By the time we're seeing 3D seamless MMOs, will be when 3D technology is as advanced as 2D technology was when everything just started moving into 3D.

Originally posted by Adam1902

Originally posted by Tatum

Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to see too many AAA MMORPGs with seamless worlds in the near future.  Seems like they're all heading towards heavy instancing.  The "MMORPG" is only there to sell more boxes.

The worst part, is that even with all the instances, the combat is still weak, the quests are still weak, and the game play is pretty much exactly the same.  So, I have to ask, what the hell is the point of using instancing in the first place?

Sadly, I think you're correct.
By the time we're seeing 3D seamless MMOs, will be when 3D technology is as advanced as 2D technology was when everything just started moving into 3D.

This might be an example of what you're saying Adam... love the screen shots... by the time this game comes out to NA region, I'll have to probably put together a new pc just for it.

/drool

http://tera.hangame.com/

Originally posted by Axehilt

Adam1902, you may not realize it but games are created to be fun. Letting the 1% griefer population ruin the fun of the 99% normal population is retarded.

 

Free open worlds are fun, the fun of it is that anything could happen.
Tell me please, how is logging into your game, and seeing a boss in the town with 200+ players (some are friends some are enemies, tough shit they have to work together for now) killing it. Why isn't this fun? *puts head in hands* I don't get it!! Don't people like this kind of action in their games? Never knowing what the hell to expect? Am I the only one on this forum or what?

Also, I think the term "grief" has been taken out of context in games today. I define griefing, as doing something that prevents someone else from playing the game. Where your actions, result in someone else not being able to do anything at all. Nowadays if someones fighting a boss what I want, and I kill them - I'm a griefer.
If I'm grinding, and other people start killing mobs in "our" mob spawn, and we kill them - we're griefers.

I don't understand this mentality, honestly. If you're not preventing someone from playing the game, it isn't griefing. Heck, find a different mob spawn! If there's an epic boss fight in the town you're in, and for some reason you don't like it. Go to another town!

Players actions should have impact on how other players play the game, isn't that what an MMO is about? If you're griefing someone, giving them no other option but to log out, fair enough, that's bad. Nobody likes that.

PS. Sorry for 2 posts in a row, I don't know how to quote twice on this forum.

EDIT: hidden1, going to have a look at Tera now, as in find out more info about it. ;) Those screenshots do look real nice.

I played a year of Lineage 2 and 4 of WoW and I still don't get wtf is griefing? it's part of the game, I guess it something that only certain players feel bad about..

Anyway to the point, sadly I guess what people said about seamless worlds is true, it seems that companies can't/don't want to do it because of the resources it takes to create such world...I've already been disappointed by AoC,WAR and Aion worlds and it seems no company but Blizzard can create such world.. I wonder how long will it take for such mmo to rise again as it takes years to create such world.

Originally posted by luciusETRUR

Seamless, huge worlds, are really not a good idea right now, unless you have the resources to back you up to get the game ready for a good launch. It's unrealistic, and I think companies realize that instancing is needed. However, we need huge zones of instancing, rather than medium-sized ones that we see today. EverQuest II is a good example of huge zones, but with instancing involved. It also makes it easier to run the game, as well, and I think these are the reasons instancing isn't going anywhere.

However, if you have the resources and the time to do seamless, then I think that's a good way to go. It would be awesome if that was the case, maybe Blizzard's next MMO will be seamless.. who knows. SOE, Microsoft and Blizzard are the only companies that really have that choice right now, though. 

EQ2 was nothing but pure fail and only a pure fanboi would try to lift it up. This was the first instanced MMO I played with my buddy and we didn't know what the heck was going on. We were in the same place, talking to the exact same NPC, yet couldnt find each other.

After a few minutes we finally figured out we were split by 'instances' and managed to merge into same one.

Finally we get off newbie isle and we think the worst was behind us. Nope!

We get to the town, Quenos (good town), and once again we split by instances. Why in hell is a TOWN split by instances we keep asking each other. Then we go hunting and once again same crap

Instances are employed wholesale by lazy devs period. The only Instanced pseudo-MMO we enjoyed was guild wars even though we ran into multiple issues with their instancing as well.

Instancing seriously removes the 'depth' one looks for in an MMO. Turns them into overpriced First Person Shooters with worst combat. Even guild wars eventually got old due to lack of depth

Bah was just thinking I did play City of Heroes for awhile and that game was so instanced it matches Guild Wars almost. I did enjoy that game for a bit although the heavy instancing finally got me.

Hoping one day we will see a real superhero MMO done right tho

Originally posted by kakarotrage

Something that hit me when I got to try Aion , a game I was looking for , was the annoying feeling of instanced small zones, I realized I can't go back to that and the next mmo I'll be playing must have a huge amazing world to explore as a minimum like WoW and Lineage 2,

what do you think?

Depends, if devs can actually pull off epic PvP battles between players or PvE then sure.  If it ends up like it does even in WoW where it turns into a freakin' lagfest then screw that least at places they know events like that will take place. I would much rather have my gameplay intact by having those places instanced or located on a separate server than have a huge open world that runs like shit whenever people try revving things up or at times cause multiple people to crash or even crash the damn server.

So I guess my actual answer is no since least from everything I've seen so far they can't do that.

Originally posted by Adam1902

Originally posted by Axehilt

Adam1902, you may not realize it but games are created to be fun. Letting the 1% griefer population ruin the fun of the 99% normal population is retarded.

 

Free open worlds are fun, the fun of it is that anything could happen.
Tell me please, how is logging into your game, and seeing a boss in the town with 200+ players (some are friends some are enemies, tough shit they have to work together for now) killing it. Why isn't this fun? *puts head in hands* I don't get it!! Don't people like this kind of action in their games? Never knowing what the hell to expect? Am I the only one on this forum or what?

Also, I think the term "grief" has been taken out of context in games today. I define griefing, as doing something that prevents someone else from playing the game. Where your actions, result in someone else not being able to do anything at all. Nowadays if someones fighting a boss what I want, and I kill them - I'm a griefer.
If I'm grinding, and other people start killing mobs in "our" mob spawn, and we kill them - we're griefers.

I don't understand this mentality, honestly. If you're not preventing someone from playing the game, it isn't griefing. Heck, find a different mob spawn! If there's an epic boss fight in the town you're in, and for some reason you don't like it. Go to another town!

Players actions should have impact on how other players play the game, isn't that what an MMO is about? If you're griefing someone, giving them no other option but to log out, fair enough, that's bad. Nobody likes that.

PS. Sorry for 2 posts in a row, I don't know how to quote twice on this forum.

EDIT: hidden1, going to have a look at Tera now, as in find out more info about it. ;) Those screenshots do look real nice.

the following boss fight had me drooling like Homer Simpson...
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQPn8bnLOu8&feature=related

Originally posted by kakarotrage

Originally posted by Anciegher

 Do you seriously need to ask this? I bet 99 out of 100 people would prefer a big seamless world if it was possible.

 

I really don't know that... otherwise I can't understand why they make Aion not only instanced and small but also have channels, which is the worst thing you can do to an mmo imo.

Imho the worst thing you can do to mmo is making it a "lunch game". Anyway I preffer seamless worlds but only if there are teleports or horses, or any other way to travel fast.

Originally posted by PatchDay

Originally posted by luciusETRUR

Seamless, huge worlds, are really not a good idea right now, unless you have the resources to back you up to get the game ready for a good launch. It's unrealistic, and I think companies realize that instancing is needed. However, we need huge zones of instancing, rather than medium-sized ones that we see today. EverQuest II is a good example of huge zones, but with instancing involved. It also makes it easier to run the game, as well, and I think these are the reasons instancing isn't going anywhere.

However, if you have the resources and the time to do seamless, then I think that's a good way to go. It would be awesome if that was the case, maybe Blizzard's next MMO will be seamless.. who knows. SOE, Microsoft and Blizzard are the only companies that really have that choice right now, though. 

 

EQ2 was nothing but pure fail and only a pure fanboi would try to lift it up. This was the first instanced MMO I played with my buddy and we didn't know what the heck was going on. We were in the same place, talking to the exact same NPC, yet couldnt find each other.

After a few minutes we finally figured out we were split by 'instances' and managed to merge into same one.

Finally we get off newbie isle and we think the worst was behind us. Nope!

We get to the town, Quenos (good town), and once again we split by instances. Why in hell is a TOWN split by instances we keep asking each other. Then we go hunting and once again same crap

 

Instances are employed wholesale by lazy devs period. The only Instanced pseudo-MMO we enjoyed was guild wars even though we ran into multiple issues with their instancing as well.

 

Instancing seriously removes the 'depth' one looks for in an MMO. Turns them into overpriced First Person Shooters with worst combat. Even guild wars eventually got old due to lack of depth

I'm not sure when you played.. but that isn't how the game works anymore. I never played EQ2 when it was like that. There is not several instances to each zone, each zone is instanced, though. A lot of people complain about loading screens, but I've never heard of this problem. 
 

Instancing is done by lazy developers? I really can't picture this logic.. any developer that embarks on creating an MMO is definitely not lazy.

Originally posted by hidden1

Originally posted by Adam1902

Originally posted by Axehilt

Adam1902, you may not realize it but games are created to be fun. Letting the 1% griefer population ruin the fun of the 99% normal population is retarded.

 

Free open worlds are fun, the fun of it is that anything could happen.
Tell me please, how is logging into your game, and seeing a boss in the town with 200+ players (some are friends some are enemies, tough shit they have to work together for now) killing it. Why isn't this fun? *puts head in hands* I don't get it!! Don't people like this kind of action in their games? Never knowing what the hell to expect? Am I the only one on this forum or what?

Also, I think the term "grief" has been taken out of context in games today. I define griefing, as doing something that prevents someone else from playing the game. Where your actions, result in someone else not being able to do anything at all. Nowadays if someones fighting a boss what I want, and I kill them - I'm a griefer.
If I'm grinding, and other people start killing mobs in "our" mob spawn, and we kill them - we're griefers.

I don't understand this mentality, honestly. If you're not preventing someone from playing the game, it isn't griefing. Heck, find a different mob spawn! If there's an epic boss fight in the town you're in, and for some reason you don't like it. Go to another town!

Players actions should have impact on how other players play the game, isn't that what an MMO is about? If you're griefing someone, giving them no other option but to log out, fair enough, that's bad. Nobody likes that.

PS. Sorry for 2 posts in a row, I don't know how to quote twice on this forum.

EDIT: hidden1, going to have a look at Tera now, as in find out more info about it. ;) Those screenshots do look real nice.

the following boss fight had me drooling like Homer Simpson...
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQPn8bnLOu8&feature=related

Me too :)
saw it just before I read your post.

There's lots of interesting stuff on Tera here. Sounds great, and from reading that it sounds like they're all for open PvP and guild politics, and their will even be systems in the game to support stuff like this. Sounds amazing. My first MMO, which I will play again and always compare MMOs to it, was developed in Korea. Koreans have the right idea as far as instancing and PvP are concerned, PvP shouldn't be a seperate shitty little mini-game.

I've also read multiple times that they want to beat the goal for most concurrent users on a server, this probably excludes EvE ofcourse (because each zone is technicly run on a different server), because they will have to build a world large enough to support this number of people (which is easier to do in a game set in space)
Anyway, a game that wants to actually create a living breathing world (read around on that link, says something like "they will be working on the RPG element, aswell as the MMO element, meaning things like the games economy, etc).

Sounds really interesting, definately going to keep myself informed on Tera. :)

Originally posted by Adam1902

Originally posted by Axehilt

Adam1902, you may not realize it but games are created to be fun. Letting the 1% griefer population ruin the fun of the 99% normal population is retarded.

 

Free open worlds are fun, the fun of it is that anything could happen.
Tell me please, how is logging into your game, and seeing a boss in the town with 200+ players (some are friends some are enemies, tough shit they have to work together for now) killing it. Why isn't this fun? *puts head in hands* I don't get it!! Don't people like this kind of action in their games? Never knowing what the hell to expect? Am I the only one on this forum or what?

Also, I think the term "grief" has been taken out of context in games today. I define griefing, as doing something that prevents someone else from playing the game. Where your actions, result in someone else not being able to do anything at all. Nowadays if someones fighting a boss what I want, and I kill them - I'm a griefer.

Killing someone who's fighting a boss you want isn't griefing.

Pulling a high-level boss into a lowbie town is.

I don't know if you've ever played a MMORPG before, but that average lowbie town probably has a grand total of six characters in various states of entering/leaving town, or AFKing.  If a high level player pulls a mob into town even 30 levels above them, they're utterly griefed - there's no way they're going to survive.

"Everyone starts in the same town" as a 'solution' to newbie griefing?  Seriously?!?! Lowbies go somewhere in the world to quest/kill - that's where the griefing happens.

Dynamic, interesting world content?  Great!  And it can be done without enabling players to exploit mob placement!

75-man world raids?  Fine (as long as they don't dominate the game; 200+ player raids is probably a tad ridiculous.)

Haphazardly dragging mobs around the world and leave them there? Retarded.  It ruins the gameplay, it ruins the visuals (why is most of this encampment empty except for the 20 mobs piled into this small tent?), it's a vessel for griefing, it's just flat out bad.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Adam1902

Originally posted by Axehilt

Adam1902, you may not realize it but games are created to be fun. Letting the 1% griefer population ruin the fun of the 99% normal population is retarded.

 

Free open worlds are fun, the fun of it is that anything could happen.
Tell me please, how is logging into your game, and seeing a boss in the town with 200+ players (some are friends some are enemies, tough shit they have to work together for now) killing it. Why isn't this fun? *puts head in hands* I don't get it!! Don't people like this kind of action in their games? Never knowing what the hell to expect? Am I the only one on this forum or what?

Also, I think the term "grief" has been taken out of context in games today. I define griefing, as doing something that prevents someone else from playing the game. Where your actions, result in someone else not being able to do anything at all. Nowadays if someones fighting a boss what I want, and I kill them - I'm a griefer.

Killing someone who's fighting a boss you want isn't griefing.

Pulling a high-level boss into a lowbie town is.

I don't know if you've ever played a MMORPG before, but that average lowbie town probably has a grand total of six characters in various states of entering/leaving town, or AFKing.  If a high level player pulls a mob into town even 30 levels above them, they're utterly griefed - there's no way they're going to survive.

Please remember, that in most MMOs, something exists called "guards".

"Everyone starts in the same town" as a 'solution' to newbie griefing?  Seriously?!?! Lowbies go somewhere in the world to quest/kill - that's where the griefing happens.

Not everyone starts in the same town, if I said that - I apologise. What I meant was, the town the high levels use, should be the very same town which newbies start in. Segregating newbies to their own towns is just telling griefers where to grief.

Dynamic, interesting world content?  Great!  And it can be done without enabling players to exploit mob placement!

You are probably imagining free mobs (that's what I'll call them) in some new game you're playing. Have you ever played a game that's well suited to this? Honestly, it's very good. And doesn't feel like anything is being exploited.

75-man world raids?  Fine (as long as they don't dominate the game; 200+ player raids is probably a tad ridiculous.)

Why is it ridiculous? Honestly, their is far more than 75 people in the same place for quite alot of events in many games. Often far more than 200.

Haphazardly dragging mobs around the world and leave them there? Retarded.  It ruins the gameplay, it ruins the visuals (why is most of this encampment empty except for the 20 mobs piled into this small tent?), it's a vessel for griefing, it's just flat out bad.

Yes in a situation like this free mobs is not the way to go. Again, you are imagining free mobs in some new game you're playing, which obviously wouldn't suit this game.

I don't even know where to start, so I'm going to do it the retarded lazy prick way. Sorry.

Wait - wehn you say small instances zones... do you mean small zones, or really that they have instances - as in zone x will have instance 1, instance 2, insance 3 of zone x? (ie like AoC)

Zones I can live with, though I dont like it... instancing them on top of that murders the game imo.