Instancing allows developers to actually put a story into their game, and make the player the focus of the story.

Heroes Journey is a game in development that seems to be doing work with instances along the lines of what the author is suggesting with variable ways to complete instanced missions.

Excellent article Nathan, your a gifted writer and I agree with your thoughts pretty much completely.

I said in a recent post that "Oblivion has nearly killed my interest in MMOs" which is amazing considering I have been MMO gaming, from solo to raids since Meridian 59. Ive played more or less everything that has been released and the trend has been that I have played each title for decreasing periods of time.

It could be a coincidence (but I dont think so) that instancing has entered MMO gaming at about the same rate as I have lost interest in MMO's. But what is the answer ?

I sat in that stupid Haunted House place (cant remember the name now) in EQ1 for the required 30+ hours straight, waiting for my DWB's just like many people did. The end result was exactly the same cookie cutter gear selection on charcaters my level, as if I had strolled straight into an instance and got them in 1-3 hours. So instancing both replicates and compounds the same issues of linear gear and gameplay you outline in your article, far more than it solves them.

On the other hand if you look at the design and operation of the world in Oblivion, you can see how with some imagination it could be implemented in an MMO. Firstly the dynamic way in which content adjusts to the level of the player is just brilliant. When you walk through the forest at level 1-5 you get attacked by wild boar and wolves, at level 10+ its trolls, whisps and spriggarns, simple and effective.

This could work in an MMO for 2 reasons. Firstly you set the raduis around a player for generated enemies fairly tight and secondly you abandon the notion of the "level fence". Who says players of a certain level shouldnt be able to explore the whole world and sometimes die in the process, I mean why does it "HAVE to be" increasing level enemies as you get further out from a city for example. This is just a notion that was devised in EQ1 and has "stuck" to this day without anyone questioning it.

EQ2 has some interesting possible solutions too with certain areas only being able to be entered on a timer basis. So instead of instance farming, you have to wait for 2 days if you have already done that area, this helps to give everyone a chance at it. Combine somethuing like that system with randonly generated items like in UO, where loot is randomly generated from a table of possible outcomes and you greatly increase the diversity and interest. Devs it seems are just not prepared to innovate anymore.

However surely the answer lies in 2 main things. MORE content and BIGGER worlds. Oblivion has over 200 dungeons that automatically re-populate after a period, all for 1 player! Transfer those maths and the size of the landmass to an MMO server for 2000 players and think of the posibilities. A massive landmass, so big you couldnt possibly see it all even if you explored flat out for a year (by which time new areas would have been introduced). So many dungeons (400,000 which is just stupid) that the chances of you having to share an area with another group would be miniscule. Ok its a dream, but its a more appealing dream than the strange solution provided by new titles like DDO. Reduce the play area to a postage stamp and instance everything...

I long for the day that I can stand on a hill in an MMO and see for miles and miles and not know which way to explore first. To discover a dungeon that even 6 months into the game, no one has come across yet. Just think about it. Getting a group together in a town to explore an area north of the town to see if we can find a dungeon or a hunting spot to spend some time in, as opposed to "anyone for an instanced farming run" *sigh*

Thats how these games are meant to be. As it stands now the spirit of adventure has been basically lost altogether and does not look like being re-discovred anytime soon.

There was a story on Australian news the other day about MMO gaming (amazing in itself) and the reporter refered to a game called "World of Work Raft". Which showed 2 things. Firstly what a shabby job he did researching his topic and secondly how right he was with his description without knowing anything about the game

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Originally posted by Razorback

On the other hand if you look at the design and operation of the world in Oblivion, you can see how with some imagination it could be implemented in an MMO. Firstly the dynamic way in which content adjusts to the level of the player is just brilliant. When you walk through the forest at level 1-5 you get attacked by wild boar and wolves, at level 10+ its trolls, whisps and spriggarns, simple and effective.

This could work in an MMO for 2 reasons. Firstly you set the raduis around a player for generated enemies fairly tight and secondly you abandon the notion of the "level fence". Who says players of a certain level shouldnt be able to explore the whole world and sometimes die in the process, I mean why does it "HAVE to be" increasing level enemies as you get further out from a city for example. This is just a notion that was devised in EQ1 and has "stuck" to this day without anyone questioning it.

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I don't think the radius idea works. What happens when someone else runs through your radius? Or you get into trouble in a fight and the people who try to help are all different levels? It could easily be accomplished with an instance, in fact I believe Guild Wars already has a similar setup. I really like the idea of travel from place to place being instanced or mostly instanced. In fact, here's another solution. Instead of  making it your own instance, or creating some kind of mini-zone around each player, just break it up by level. Everyone within say 5 levels enters into the same instance they travel from place to place.

As to the whole "tougher out from the city", that's not EQ1, that was reality in Medieval times and all the way back to the Roman era, and probably even earlier. Bandits and highwaymen didn't operate in places where the Watch or the local garrison could reach them in a few minutes. Areas near the cities are heavily guarded and patrolled. It's out away from civilization that things get wild, hence the phrase "off the beaten path". Rome understood this quite well, which is part of the reason for the well maintained and patrolled roads through as much of the Empire as they could manage. 

Probably the biggest argument for instancing for me came when I was playing Star Wars Galaxies.

There were times that you could go to not a single cave or dungeon without seeing macro looters, powerlevellers, and power gamers camped out at these places for hours on end, at all hours of the day.  They were a minority of the total subscribers who were exploiting the vast majority of new content.

If we all played our roles, and worked to make the game world seem as realistic as possible, we wouldn't need instances.  The problem comes when a few dedicated looters or powerlevellers stay at the area far longer than any typical enjoyment value would permit due to an obsession with gaining an advantage at all costs, or through game assist tools like macros.  Its natural some do, because we gain so much more of an advantage over our peers when we "squat in the sandbox."  We as players stand to take control and master those constraints the developers assumed we would naturally follow, by throwing immersion out the window.

The problem is, most players are not willing to take this "fun" so seriously that they would leave a computer run for the sole purpose of camping an area.  They want to live the adventure, and experience all the good things the game has to offer.  But how can they, when players never leave the adventure areas of the game world?

You can do it one of two ways.  The first way is what SWG attempted, but then abandoned, because it never lived to its potential.  Create a system of "character wear and tear," so that even the strongest character cannot stay in the adventure areas indefinately.  The problem with that idea is that the trend these days is to slice such "timesinks" at every turn, whether it is in the best interests of the game, or not.

That's why I think the "lockout" solution is only a stopgap measure at best, and may not be as elegant of a solution as we need it.  We take out timesinks that actually make sense, only to replace it with a more contrived and tedious timesink?  I see more complaints about lockout timers than I do anything else right now in PvE play.  It hurts the very people its designed to help: the casuals and roleplayers, who want to play on their time, not on the provider's timetable.  And it doesn't stop power players, who are "professionalized" to the point of timing to the minute when the lockouts turn off.

The second solution is instancing, and it seems this is the route most game designers are taking.  Primarily because it allows the designers to cut costs, and manage their server/client exchanges more effectively, but also, because it fits in with the current "anti-timesink" trend.  And it is an effective solution, for a playerbase that is fast learning that it is a waste of time to expect immersion from games like these.

Players are going to power play.  Not all, but enough to get subscribers thinking in terms of, "screw this.  Why should I pay for this twink's fun?"  We had it in UO, we had it in EQ, and we had it in spades in SWG.  The difference is what degree the game allows campers, twinks, the unattended, and powerlevellers to muck up the experience of everyone else, who deserve some content for their box fee and subscription fees.  For at the root of the genre is the promise of fun, and that needs to take precedence over a "realistic economy," or a "virtual community."

We threw the concept of realism in the economy the moment the first macro-driven farmer entered MMORPGs.  We threw out the possibility of virtual communities the moment we had characters logged on that had no purpose but to wait for spawns and win the "damage lottery."  And seeing how we as players and developers are unwilling and unable to put measures in place to stop these, we have to do something to make the game work.  Instancing does it in a way that doesn't ruffle too many special interests.

Yeah it feels "cheap" at times, but so does seeing macro looters, eBay gold, and the "top 5%" that owns 80% of the server content and wealth.

We say we don't want instances.  Unfortunately, I don't see much in terms of player behavior that indicates to me we can avoid it.

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Originally posted by Razorback

EQ2 has some interesting possible solutions too with certain areas only being able to be entered on a timer basis. So instead of instance farming, you have to wait for 2 days if you have already done that area, this helps to give everyone a chance at it. Combine somethuing like that system with randonly generated items like in UO, where loot is randomly generated from a table of possible outcomes and you greatly increase the diversity and interest. Devs it seems are just not prepared to innovate anymore.

However surely the answer lies in 2 main things. MORE content and BIGGER worlds. Oblivion has over 200 dungeons that automatically re-populate after a period, all for 1 player! Transfer those maths and the size of the landmass to an MMO server for 2000 players and think of the posibilities. A massive landmass, so big you couldnt possibly see it all even if you explored flat out for a year (by which time new areas would have been introduced). So many dungeons (400,000 which is just stupid) that the chances of you having to share an area with another group would be miniscule. Ok its a dream, but its a more appealing dream than the strange solution provided by new titles like DDO. Reduce the play area to a postage stamp and instance everything...

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Virtually every game with instances either has timers or the instance is designed so that farming doesn't matter. DDO, for example, only has one timered instance, but the rest have other restrictions. If you do farm an instance, everything you get get(xp, loot) begins to decrease to the point that you get nothing. WOW does the reverse of a lock, the instance only reset after a period of time. If you re-enter before it's reset, the bosses won't be up. DAOC and COH/V have randomly generated instances that essentially are intended to be disposable and can't really be farmed. The few exceptions don't offer much for the farming effort that can't already be gotten(items/enhancements that can be bought from a merchant). In truth, farming shouldn't ever be an issue. Players shouldn't need to do it for specific items(everyone has that item they just have to have, but it shouldn't be the same one for everyone), and the game shouldn't be able to be damaged by it if someone does do it. If it, then the game has a flawed design IMO. I despise WoW's endgame because of this.

As to DDO's "play area", well, if you make the mistake of thinking that everything that's instanced "doesn't count" then yes, it's play area isn't huge. Though my opinion is it's too big already, has you running all over the place turning in items and finding quests when you could be out on an adventure. Anyway, if you count the instanced content, then DDO is pretty huge, and exploring with your party is what D&D is all about. I've read over half the Forgotten Realm's novels, and I can tell you that the book Streams of Silver would not have been as interesting if Bruenor, Drizzt, and the rest of the Icewind Dale companions had shown up army of dwarves in tow to liberate Mithral Hall, only to find Elminster and the Seven Sisters there divviing up the loot. DDO is a near perfect video game conversion of the pen and paper rules. I can't think of how it could be any closer to the spirit of the game. There are alot of things I'd like to see added, but those are simply mechancis. Without capturing the spirit of D&D, it could have every single rule from the PHB and DMG, every single race, class, prestige class, all of it, and it wouldn't matter because it wouldn't be D&D.

On the topic at hand, not having instanced dungeons is a travesty in this man's opinion. We call these games MMOs but for the most part, we don't want the "Massive", we want enough people to work with reasonably for the task at hand. Out in DAOC's RvR, that can reach "massive" levels. I've seen raids with well over 200+ people on each side, and it was glorious. I would never want 200 people in the dungeon with me though. From what I've seen, any more than 20 is pushing it.

It'd  be nice to see dungeons instances without hard set requirements. For example, if DAOC or EQ1 were to instance some of their existing dungeons for battle/raid groups. No real limits, just make it so if a guild puts together 3 groups and hits a dungeon, everything isn't dead from the 6 groups that rolled through 15 hours ago when you were sleeping.

The exception would be if a dungeon were designed for a "squad assault" rather than the linear stuff we see currently. Instead of 40 people zerging their way to the end(and even if you have to use a boatload of tactics, 40 is pretty much a zerg), break the dungeon into segments doable by smaller groups, and send them off in different directions. DDO has this on a small scale(within the group), but I'm talking about 20+ people. I believe DAOC actually does employ this for a Master Level step, where you need a fairly large group of players to assault several camps around a fort at the same time  while another group assaults the fort itself. The individual camps where easy for a single group to handle, but I believe there were 4 or 5 camps. Never did it myself, but that's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

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Originally posted by Razorback

I long for the day that I can stand on a hill in an MMO and see for miles and miles and not know which way to explore first. To discover a dungeon that even 6 months into the game, no one has come across yet. Just think about it. Getting a group together in a town to explore an area north of the town to see if we can find a dungeon or a hunting spot to spend some time in, as opposed to "anyone for an instanced farming run" *sigh*

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No, you really don't. It sound appealing, but you haven't considered the logistics. A game built that way isn't fun. To find this dungeon, 6 months after release, before anyone else found it...you'd have to an area where literally no one else has been. How long would it take you to get there? It'd have to be so far away from starting zones that you've done nothing but have your character walk in that direction for hours on end, or someone else would have beaten you there. Faster methods of travel couldn't be put in, or the land would have to be bigger(essentially canceling each other out). Of course the biggest factor is how many people are on this server. The more people, the less likely you'll be to be the first to do anything, unless the landmass gets bigger(again, canceling each other out).

So now you've found this dungeon. What do you do? Can you solo it? Do you need a group? Odds are good that unless you brought them with you, there's no one else around for a very long walk. If you didn't bring a group with you, finding a few people in an area no one has discovered for 6 months isn't exactly likely. You cite Oblivion repeatedly for it's amount of content, which is a ton for a single player game, there's no doubt. However, if you slapped Oblivion on a multiplayer server and put 50 people on it, every piece of content will have been touched by someone within a few days. It might take months for one person to do everything, but that's not what we're talking about.

You mention standing on a hill and looking in every direction. What do you see, and what impact does that have on gameplay? Is it just mile and mile of empty woods and prairies? If so, what's the point? I'm an explorer too, but I like to see neat things that are relevent to the game, not a digital landscape. Even of the landscape itself is unique and different, once I've seen it, it's been seen. It now serves no purpose other than being something I have to cross to get to the next new thing. Consequently I don't find walking through digital landscapes very appealing. I like to hike, I hit the local trails here in RL when I want to see varied landscape.

On the other hand, if it's full of trolls and orcs, isn't that the same? You tediously wading through hordes of enemies for hours on end to get somewhere? I can do that in a Final Fantasy game, but I'd rather not. It's the reason I quit playing them.

The simple truth is, no one could possibly produce the level of content you're talking about. There's a game out there that's on the kind of scale you're referencing, Eve Online. This is a game with over 3000 solar systems. I doubt I've been to more than 100 different ones, and I'll never visit all of them. But someone has, and does, nearly daily. The server these days averages 20,000 players at a time. During peak hours you can't go to a system that has anything worth going to for and expect to be alone for more than 10 mins.

The game has "dungeons" that aren't instanced, but aren't truly farmed either(at least not in the traditional sense), and are numerous enough that even if one is being farmed, you can easily find another(in theory). I don't think I've ever made it through one without seeing the influence of another player there, even on the occasions when I don't actually see another player(extremely rare). With 20k players, no matter how many you have someone is going to pop in.

I've been on the flip side, I played Eve when it first came out and the peak was 3-5k players. That's no fun either, wandering around in a huge world all by yourself. Might as well play Oblivion.

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Although it would seem like the antithesis of the MMORPG (remember what the M and M stand for), there is a sizeable portion of the online community that prefers, and in some cases demands, solo content. These people will often wait in line for hours to log into the most populated server available, then completely ignore any human interaction as they go about grinding through monsters and quests alone. It might have something to do with the social awkwardness of the average gamer,

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I pretty much gave up on the article after this bit. He's clearly got an axe to grind and so decided to work in some ramblings against "solo gamers" for no good reason. He repeats a couple of silly strawmen, even though it's not at all relevant to the article. This is the first article by him that I've read, and I don't really see the point in bothering with his future articles; he clearly will keep trhowing in silly rants against anything that's not forced grouping in MMOs rather than sticking to the topic at hand, and won't even really discuss anything real about the topic he keeps interjecting but will stick to silliness (like the 'anyone who doesn't want to be in a group or raid for all of their gameplay will copletely ignore human interaction'). It's not that I disagree with him, it's that he's not making honest arguments.

Plus it's obvious anyway that raiders are actually the socially awkward ones, we're talking about people who cannot divide up video game items without complex accounting systems to decide who 'deserves' an item.

It seems to me that this notion of "solo" versus "social" is not as simple as "if you solo, you can't be social."

Because there are several situations I can think of where that simply is not the case.

I may solo an instance in COH.  But just because I'm soloing an instance doesn't prevent me from carrying on via tells, or broadcast, or SG chat.

I may be in a grind group to get XP.  But just because I'm in the group to get XP doesn't mean I'm playing with the players in my group.  I may very well be "solo," yet in the group, or only have the group member come to me if they are needed.  In EVE I can be in a gang with other random players in the system.  But I'll mine solo, and go to them if they are in trouble.

It seems to me that there are four combinations of "solo versus group," and "aloof versus social."

1)  You have the solo player, who doesn't communicate with others.  This is the sort of "man in the black cape" the author describes.

2)  You have the group player, who doesn't communicate with others.  This sort of player is like the "watchdog," or the, "fire brigade."  You find this a lot in EVE, the old SWG, and Anarchy Online.  They'll play in the group, because playing in the group gives them advantages, but not because they necessarily prefer the players they are with, and not because they have any need to work as a tightly choreographed unit.

3)  You have the solo player, who communicates with other players all the time.  They don't game with others, but they carry on with others in global chats, through tells, rooms, spatial, or voice servers.  This is the "switchboard operator," or, "broadcaster."  The entertainers in SWG fulfilled this role, and you also see a lot of this in EVE Online happening during trade runs, or mining.

4)  You have the group player, who communicates with other players.  This seems to be the "best case" for Mr. Knaack, but it also seems to lead to the "worst effects" for Mr. Knaack.  I would argue that this format creates the worst sort of raiding culture, the most antisocial community, and the most divided community in terms of voice versus non voice, and casual versus hardcore.  Communication happens, because communication is required for proper game functionality.  But because communication and teamwork are tied together so strongly as essential game elements, you get a raid guild society, filled with players who don't talk to anyone outside of themselves, and not talking about much other than, "pull the boss."

I just thought of that.  Maybe I should send my model to Nick Yee or something.  But is that helpful to you, Nathan?

As sadly so few people actually know how things evolve, I would like to offer a quick Trivia Contest with no reward except it proves you are not a MMO Noobie :)

What famous MMO game first pioneered Instances?

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Anarchy Online circa 2001

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Originally posted by Pantastic

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Although it would seem like the antithesis of the MMORPG (remember what the M and M stand for), there is a sizeable portion of the online community that prefers, and in some cases demands, solo content. These people will often wait in line for hours to log into the most populated server available, then completely ignore any human interaction as they go about grinding through monsters and quests alone. It might have something to do with the social awkwardness of the average gamer,

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I pretty much gave up on the article after this bit. He's clearly got an axe to grind and so decided to work in some ramblings against "solo gamers" for no good reason.

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Originally posted by Beatnik59

1)  You have the solo player, who doesn't communicate with others. 

2)  You have the group player, who doesn't communicate with others.

3)  You have the solo player, who communicates with other players all the time. 

4)  You have the group player, who communicates with other players. 

 But is that helpful to you, Nathan?

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Maybe if I win the lotto I can retire and play them all.

Hey man, a guy can dream, right?

But anyhow, let's get back to what the game will need to satisfy these four types.  The real problem, as it always seems to be, is not what is possible; but rather, what the trends find fashionable.  Unfortunately, I don't think the sort of game that will do the kind of things that need to be done is very fashionable right now, which is probably why we don't see more play styles represented.

But if I were to design a game, and wanted to incorporate all sorts of solo and social players, I'd think I'd have to do the following.  Let's take a simple game of "capture the flag," played over a massive world.

I'd have to give the solo/asocial "men in black capes" some pretty impressive survival skills, and unique abilities to "hide" from other players.  They'd need these, because they will actually be weaker, or less effective, when operating in groups.  The sort of role they'd play is to infiltrate the other side and discover where the flags are located.  Because they need to move quickly and not be noticed, a group would only slow them down.  They'd be more than able to solo another player one on one, but will be unable to sustain a conflict for very long.

Now the guys who are trying to guard these flags over a vast area are the group players, who do not make a habit of communicating with eachother.  They are the garrisons who have the exact opposite builds as the "men in black capes."  Big, obvious, slow, localized, but can take a ton of punishment.  Their job would be to guard each flag.  But seeing as there will probably be many flags, they cannot cluster around one.  This garrison has to operate as a whole unit, but for the most part, each part considers themselves autonomous.  Maybe they should also have some solo oriented mini-games, and attendent duties to do, while they are around the flag.

They get their garrison duties from a "command and control" center.  Such players have weak or nonexistant combat skills, but have superior map skills, and information skills, which allow them to see the "big picture" of what the strategic situation looks like.  These are composed of solo players, who enjoy communicating.  They have the info to know where their own side's flags are, so they can send the "garrison," who is able to update the info to the command and controller.  They also gather all the info from the "men in black capes" as to where the enemy flags are.  They see when a "garrison" is being attacked, and see where they need to attack.  And for this, they call in the "brigades."

The "brigade" player is the group oriented player, who communicates with others.  Their job is to go where the "command and controller" tells them to go, because only the "command and control" player knows where they can be best used.  They are balanced, highly effective players who work best when supporting eachother, but they can't stay in the field for very long stretches of time.  They basically stay in the "barracks" until a command and control player gives them an assignment.  The two main things they do is to strike the enemy's flags, and also counterattack when their own flags are being attacked.  But because they have to strike hard before their momentum dissipates, they have to be highly coordinated and drilled in the heat of conflict.

Now I'm sure someone will point out the difficulties, but I think the main difficulty is that it depends a lot on having meaningful measures of time and distance for this to work.  There is also a lot of potential "inactivity," with periodic bursts of highly intense activity.  But the secret to a game that accomodates all sorts of players, is to give players useful functions alone or in groups, and makes coordination more important for some roles, and personal resourcefulness important in others.