Originally posted by MikeJT

I think the main undertone of this thread on why people dislike instances are based on the fact that alot of people want a deeper experience from their MMORPG's.

They want their actions in the game world to mean something. Most MMORPG's haven't really managed to achieve meaning in gaming.

I think it might be rooted in a deeper desire to have a world to escape to which is not so mundane as our own, but at the same time, actually being able to create an impact.

For some, it might border on wanting an entire second virtual life. For others, its more experimentation and running through 'what if' scenarios. Then finally, for some it's just wanting the challenge of a world where anything goes, and where there are immense worlds to explore, exploit (as in exploiting natural resources, not exploiting gameplay mechanics!), and interact in.

Instancing ruins all of this. If we want our actions to have consequences, they can't be undone in 3 hours when an instance respawns.

This I think is why MMORPG gamers dislike instances.

I am not against instancing if it is done 'correctly' but in the last few years we have seen every extreme.

Some examples

WWIIoL contains no instancing - it is a persistant world and everyone playing shares that world.  In this game your actions do have a real lasting effect.  If you capture a town it stays captured (until the enemy capture it back!).  In this game with almost no PvE or crafting instancing is not required anyway and it would be inappropriate in an RvR game.

Which brings us to the other extreme: Pirates of the Burning Sea.
In this game everything is instanced.  Every battle, every mission.  So much instancing that the only areas not 'instanced' (the Travel Map and the towns) serve more as 'graphical lobbies' than game play areas.
I now call this sort of design a "Graphical Lobby Game".  It really has more in common with a Single Player Game with a Multiplayer Option than a MMORPG.  Stargate Worlds and The Agency were heading down this road too.

In the middle there are games with 'appropriate instancing'
An excellent example of what instancing is and why it is - is available for free play (demo) in Wizard 101.
In Wizard 101 most boss fights are instanced and with good reason... there is also one that is not.
For players who are 100% anti instancing in MMORPGs I encourage you all to play the free levels of Wizard 101.
About level 8 as part of the main story arc there is a battle with the Kraken on Triton Ave.
As the Wiki entry says - this battle is very popular and as a result it is often difficult to get a spot fighting this 'boss'.  This can prove very annoying when you are unable to advance your character because you are unable to complete a quest due to the lack of a boss to fight!
Other items instanced in in Wizard 101 are levels with puzzles which require / allow players (or small groups of players) to complete them without 'spoiling' the game for other players.
Note that Wizard 101 also has shard servers - but this is done for performance reasons - not because it was simply 'easier' for the designers.

The interesting thing about the post I quoted and MMORPGs is that there are a couple of Browser Based games that have done a better job of this than some of the high budget games lately.
Pardus is one notible example - where player actions have on going effects.  Wars are fought and alliances formed which effect gameplay for months.
And this is what I think many designers misunderstand about MMORPG gamer psychology.  MMORPG Gamers want persistence in their worlds.  They want History.  They want to be able to look back and say..."The reason this alliance exists is because six months ago there was a war where these guys captured this place from them and that was because of this.  I was part of that.  I made that happen.  I left my mark.

That sort of thing is difficult to achieve in a world heavily reliant on instancing.

Oddly, one of the few games that may be able to claim that is Darkfall... again no instancing IIRC?

Well, that's my view anyway... and I just said somthing nice about Darkfall?  :-O  ...might leave that there...

Yes, dynamic content is in it's infancy. I think we have gone backwards - save few games.

I think the only real virtual world is EVE. You might not like the game, but it is the only one that allows persistant world with dynamic content with only a single server. It also has very nice approach to on-demand content, so even user specific content can exists in a persistent virtual world.

Second game that was quite innovate in my opinion was Anarchy Online with it's towers, player cities and on-demand missions. Sure, it was not only game to do them, but it is one that I have had more experience with.

Looking at the current breed of MMOs, none really offer any major changes to dynamic content either. Aion has some dynamic elements, but even they seem rather limited. Instancing is a cop out - easy way to address a more complex issue, but not a very good one in my opinion.

Earlier MMOs actually did have more dynamic content. However, there were problems to it with no easy solutions available at the time.  On one side you had players who did not want to compete for content and hated lag that resulted from poor technology and early internet connections along with many other issues. I think today we are in a different situation, but instanced content along with hand crafted worlds are arguably easier to create than dynamic content that is much more unpredictable.

Well, enough ranting. The main thing is that I do not think we need instances anymore. Or if there are some parts that are instanced, with today's technology it would be quite easy to hide them behind dynamic content where user might not even be aware that they are in an instanced area.

Instancing is EVIL!!!!!!

Although, there are always counter arguments:

Instancing in certain forms can help keep the level 60's away from the level 20's, who knows.

(I used to lose people all the time in icecrown when I played wow. I had all the outdoor instances there discovered through the questing, so if I were chasing down an opposing player to kill him.....suddenly he'd disappear because of the damn fooking instance!)

Originally posted by thexrated
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 Instancing is a cop out - easy way to address a more complex issue, but not a very good one in my opinion.

Instancing has its place but a look here gives this quote:
The problem can be stated as follows: everyone wants to be "The Hero" and slay "The Monster", rescue "The Princess" and obtain "The Magic Sword".

My suggestion to game designers would be consider saying "No."

Having done that, re-evaluate the problem and see if there is another solution.
 

Originally posted by twiggly
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Instancing in certain forms can help keep the level 60's away from the level 20's, who knows.

...

You don't need instancing for that.  You need proper game design.  

If you wan't to keep level 20s out of the zone for 60s you make it difficult or impossible to get there at that level.

If you want to keep 60s from the 20s you make it unprofitable / uncomfortable / unnecessary for them to go there.

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

Originally posted by MikeJT

Instancing ruins all of this. If we want our actions to have consequences, they can't be undone in 3 hours when an instance respawns.

It's not instancing that ruins it. It's the fact that other players want to run the same content. If you kill that uber dragon on the mountain top, it HAS to respawn so the next group can fight it. If you do a quest where you burn down a Goblin village, it rebulds itself because there's another adventurer waiting to burn it down.

I agree.  Last night, in fact, I was going to run a quest, but the first target in my quest was gone and it respawns after a minimum of 2 hours and then only a 20% non-cumulative chance every 20 minutes thereafter.  It could take all day to show up and once it does... there's usually a line waiting to kill it again.

There's another boss that respawns once every 18 hours.  People set their alarm clocks so they can be standing there to kill it when it respawns.

You just can't do things like that without instances.

Originally posted by Gyrus

Originally posted by thexrated
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 Instancing is a cop out - easy way to address a more complex issue, but not a very good one in my opinion.

Instancing has its place but a look here gives this quote:
The problem can be stated as follows: everyone wants to be "The Hero" and slay "The Monster", rescue "The Princess" and obtain "The Magic Sword".

My suggestion to game designers would be consider saying "No."

Having done that, re-evaluate the problem and see if there is another solution.

I understand the reasons for it. Like I said, there can be instanced and user-specific content, but with today's technology it would be not that hard to make it appear more as a part of the persistent world - that is why I gave examples where it is done in that manner, like EVE and AO with their on-demand missions. Also, in WoW, at Icecrown, where you actually change the game world, but you truly only change the objects you see in the game world in relation to others - this could be expanded much further. And so on.

Originally posted by Gyrus

Originally posted by thexrated
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 Instancing is a cop out - easy way to address a more complex issue, but not a very good one in my opinion.

Instancing has its place but a look here gives this quote:
The problem can be stated as follows: everyone wants to be "The Hero" and slay "The Monster", rescue "The Princess" and obtain "The Magic Sword".

My suggestion to game designers would be consider saying "No."

Having done that, re-evaluate the problem and see if there is another solution.
 

 

Agree. They're stating the problem wrong. Humans crave narrative - that's not the same as all wanting to be the hero.

Instancing is great if done in moderation.  I think Everquest did it excellently.  One instance of "zones" and everyone can be in that same instance.  I don't like something such as ZoneA-1, ZoneA-2, ZoneA-3, and each of them having 20 people in them.  Make it one big world with fragmented landscapes that you have to "zone" into.  The old school Everquest dungeons were awesome...trains you have to avoid add to the excitement.  Doing a camp check to see if the spot you want to camp is open was tons of fun.  I dunno...I can see advantages and disadvantages to it.  It did suck when you wanted to kill a boss or get keyed for something and another guild had already killed that boss for the week.

Originally posted by Gyrus

Originally posted by thexrated
...

 Instancing is a cop out - easy way to address a more complex issue, but not a very good one in my opinion.

Instancing has its place but a look here gives this quote:
The problem can be stated as follows: everyone wants to be "The Hero" and slay "The Monster", rescue "The Princess" and obtain "The Magic Sword".

My suggestion to game designers would be consider saying "No."

Having done that, re-evaluate the problem and see if there is another solution. 

I wish that wiki article cited a damn source.  I've been looking for that Richard Garriott quote forever!

He's right on the money.   The more people sharing your game world with you, the harder it is for that game world to make you feel like the hero slaying the monster.  Instead you feel like a dude slaying a monster.

Since "heroic fantasy" is such a basic desire for people (I don't know anyone who grew up devoid of a hero they wanted to be like,) it thus makes sense to custom-craft games so that being a hero is what the game's all about -- or at least being in a group of heroes like the Fellowship of the Rings or the X-Men.  Thus a lot of games resort to instancing, and instancing isn't Pure Concentrated Evil™.

That said, not too far down the list of gamer demands is "immersive world", and instancing certainly hurts immersion a bit.

There are tricks to somewhat alleviate the issue (like WOW's phasing tech, which basically amounts to on-the-fly instancing) but inevitably if you can see more than just you and your party, you are less likely to feel like the hero.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Gyrus

Originally posted by thexrated
...

 Instancing is a cop out - easy way to address a more complex issue, but not a very good one in my opinion.

Instancing has its place but a look here gives this quote:
The problem can be stated as follows: everyone wants to be "The Hero" and slay "The Monster", rescue "The Princess" and obtain "The Magic Sword".

My suggestion to game designers would be consider saying "No."

Having done that, re-evaluate the problem and see if there is another solution. 

 

I wish that wiki article cited a damn source.  I've been looking for that Richard Garriott quote forever!

He's right on the money.   The more people sharing your game world with you, the harder it is for that game world to make you feel like the hero slaying the monster.  Instead you feel like a dude slaying a monster.

Since "heroic fantasy" is such a basic desire for people (I don't know anyone who grew up devoid of a hero they wanted to be like,) it thus makes sense to custom-craft games so that being a hero is what the game's all about -- or at least being in a group of heroes like the Fellowship of the Rings or the X-Men.  Thus a lot of games resort to instancing, and instancing isn't Pure Concentrated Evil™.

That said, not too far down the list of gamer demands is "immersive world", and instancing certainly hurts immersion a bit.

There are tricks to somewhat alleviate the issue (like WOW's phasing tech, which basically amounts to on-the-fly instancing) but inevitably if you can see more than just you and your party, you are less likely to feel like the hero.

Perhaps games need to start involving quests of truly epic proportions. You might not be the hero who slayed the monster, but you might be a part of the army that slayed the monster, or the army that defended the castle from the army of undead. You need to make sure that there is a truly epic and urgent task that is ongoing and allows players from all levels and from all classes and skill focuses to participate.

For example a blacksmith could work for ages producing swords and armour to equip an army, a healer would be occupied for ages healing all the warriors that are sent back from the front with major injuries. Warriors could be up the front fighting off the enemy whilst archers reign down a hail of arrows on the enemy. A fletcher could be producing arrows constantly and an engineer could be building and maintaining seige engines to reign down rocks and spears on the enemy.

You can't just do a WoW and say there's a force of good and a force of evil and they're at war with each other but have no front line and nothing that ever changes.

A truly persistant world with open PvP (or atleast faction vs faction PvP) would certainly keep players on their toes and involved in the war effort, and probably generate enough content all by itself.

Originally posted by MikeJT
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Perhaps games need to start involving quests of truly epic proportions. You might not be the hero who slayed the monster, but you might be a part of the army that slayed the monster, or the army that defended the castle from the army of undead. You need to make sure that there is a truly epic and urgent task that is ongoing and allows players from all levels and from all classes and skill focuses to participate.

...

A truly persistant world with open PvP (or atleast faction vs faction PvP) would certainly keep players on their toes and involved in the war effort, and probably generate enough content all by itself.

There was a single player game years ago that sort of had this idea...

A version of this game is still played on the net... and I believe it would be perfect for an MMO... (have for some time)...

Can you actually see my design notes?... or are you just guessing? :-|

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

Originally posted by MikeJT

Instancing ruins all of this. If we want our actions to have consequences, they can't be undone in 3 hours when an instance respawns.

It's not instancing that ruins it. It's the fact that other players want to run the same content. If you kill that uber dragon on the mountain top, it HAS to respawn so the next group can fight it. If you do a quest where you burn down a Goblin village, it rebulds itself because there's another adventurer waiting to burn it down.

I agree.  Last night, in fact, I was going to run a quest, but the first target in my quest was gone and it respawns after a minimum of 2 hours and then only a 20% non-cumulative chance every 20 minutes thereafter.  It could take all day to show up and once it does... there's usually a line waiting to kill it again.

There's another boss that respawns once every 18 hours.  People set their alarm clocks so they can be standing there to kill it when it respawns.

You just can't do things like that without instances.

That is simply poor game design. Blame the developers for creating single mob bottlenecks.

Instead of making an item drop exclusively off one named mob, have it as a rare item drop amongst a loot table shared by multiple mobs of the same difficulty, or make it a quest reward that can only be earned once and have the mob targets of that quest drop nothing except  lore no drop quest items to be turned in. That way people won't farm those quest mobs.

I am definitely in the "anti-instancing" crowd.  I guess I was spoiled by EQ1 in that regard.  Some of my best memories from that game are from interacting with players from other groups while descending deep into dungeons.  It really fostered the community in that game, whereas instancing dungeons inhibits that interaction to a certain extent.

However, I recognize the advantages to instancing as well.  Camping named mobs is ridiculously immersion-breaking and can be a problem in non-instanced zones.  Also, particularly when a game is just starting out, the sheer number of people crawling a dungeon at once can take a lot of the fun out of the experience.

EQ2 did a pretty good job with instancing, in that it kept it to a minimum.  Typically, the final boss encounter is instanced, but the rest of the dungeon is available to everyone.  Since the final encounter is the main goal of most groups, it prevents competition for that area but maintains the excitement of dungeon crawling competition and interaction.

All in all, I prefer non-instanced areas to instanced ones, but it is far from a game-breaker for me.

There is nothing "Massively Multiplayer" about instancing.

WoW is heavily instanced because they made the most LINEAR game to hit the market. The zones, dungeons and general progression is as linear as you get and that's why they won over the masses. The masses love to be held by the hand.

Anything with instancing is a pseudo-MMOG and prepare to go from point A to point B over and over until you realize you've been duped. Show me a non-linear, non-instanced world without all the negative "Sandbox" connotations and I'll show you my loyalty and patronage for years to come.

I personally don't like instancing games, but I will say this. I recognize that there are people out there that like instancing games, and as part of my "everyone should have their game" idea, there should be some instancing games out there.

Now, the reason I don't like instancing games is because I hate that feeling where "everyone's the hero" of their own gaming world. To explain this better, I'll state an example. In Silkroad Online, there is a quest where you need to slay a demon. You need a sword called "Silverlight," which was decently powerful if you were a newbie. However, I notice how after the npc witch tells me that I'm the "chosen one" that there's dozens of people camping near the demon waiting for their turn to kill it. Now, this example doesn't seem to make sense because I am talking about a non-instanced game, so I have another example from Guild Wars.

I only played Guild Wars for a short time, but this was another game where "I was the chosen one" as well as thousands of other people. There was a huge interactive world, but it was so lonely when it was just me and a few npc buddies (I was a newbie, and didn't know what the invite command was).

I like making my mark inside an MMO game. Inside Killzone2, there is a weekly analysis where the top 10%, 6%, 3% and 1% of gamers in overall best gaming are rewarded with a special ribbon on their ranking for everyone to see how awesome you are (and you get a trophy for getting a ribbon). I made my mark in the game (I got a 10% ribbon, and this was only a month after buying the game), and everyone recognizes it. I would love an mmorpg like that. Earthrise looks like that, so if FF XIV ends up sucking by being too casual, solable, or the gameplay simply sucks, then Earthrise is worth a try...

Originally posted by acidworm

There is nothing "Massively Multiplayer" about instancing.

WoW is heavily instanced because they made the most LINEAR game to hit the market. The zones, dungeons and general progression is as linear as you get and that's why they won over the masses. The masses love to be held by the hand.

Anything with instancing is a pseudo-MMOG and prepare to go from point A to point B over and over until you realize you've been duped. Show me a non-linear, non-instanced world without all the negative "Sandbox" connotations and I'll show you my loyalty and patronage for years to come.

However, there is quite a lot of "Roleplaying Game" about instancing.

Instancing can really help immersion and give you the 'I am an adventurer going out into the wild' feeling. 

Also your WoW hating is silly.  WoW's instances are probably as non-linear as you get in the game.  They are for the most part outside the normal quest chains and until the endgame purely optional for progression. 

Personally I would rather have well used instancing then go back to the days of Sol B and Guk in EQ :p ..fighting for dragon spawns for my cleric epic later on, getting trained in Hate...could go on and on...instancing for me is one of the best thing to ever happen to MMOs. As with all tools though it has to be well used, too much (ala Guild Wars) and it definitely isn't a true MMO in the exploring sense, or poorly paced ones (the start of AoC in Tortage) that make you go in and out all the time are just bad ways to use your tools.

Well used, for gameplay reasons, instancing is an excellent choice.

Originally posted by Torik

However, there is quite a lot of "Roleplaying Game" about instancing.

Instancing can really help immersion and give you the 'I am an adventurer going out into the wild' feeling. 

I agree.  I can't imagine it's much fun to be in a completely non-instanced world where everyone is standing in long lines to kill a boss.  It's like standing in line at Disneyland.

Where is the fun in that?

Originally posted by Torik

Originally posted by acidworm

There is nothing "Massively Multiplayer" about instancing.

WoW is heavily instanced because they made the most LINEAR game to hit the market. The zones, dungeons and general progression is as linear as you get and that's why they won over the masses. The masses love to be held by the hand.

Anything with instancing is a pseudo-MMOG and prepare to go from point A to point B over and over until you realize you've been duped. Show me a non-linear, non-instanced world without all the negative "Sandbox" connotations and I'll show you my loyalty and patronage for years to come.

 

However, there is quite a lot of "Roleplaying Game" about instancing.

Instancing can really help immersion and give you the 'I am an adventurer going out into the wild' feeling. 

 

Also your WoW hating is silly.  WoW's instances are probably as non-linear as you get in the game.  They are for the most part outside the normal quest chains and until the endgame purely optional for progression. 

I get what your saying but I definitely do not "hate" WoW.

I started following WoW rabidly in late 2002 when they released a movie with in-game footage and a soothing soundtrack (anyone remember it? showed orc in barrens, paladin in duskwood). The art style mesmerized me and I became borderline obsessed. During the "friends and family" beta, someone released an emulated server with full pvp. I never tried an e-server before (and never have again) but I had to play this, it was a MUST. I played straight from Friday night to Sunday morning, adrenaline full speed ahead. I was a solid black Tauren Warrior named "Onyx" in the middle of the Crossroads slaying away like some crazed barbarian. I was HOOKED.

Then came phase 1 closed beta and when I saw that invite in my inbox, I knew that I had found my home for the next several years. I tested 12 to 20 hours a day. I submitted hundreds of bugs. I felt it was my duty to shape this glorious game into a solid MMOG. Not even in my wildest dreams did I expect it to have more than 500 k subs.

Retail came, was the first Horde 60 Warrior on my server and in the top guild. Was also first full tier 2 Warrior on the server. Main tanking MC, BWL, AQ....6 days a week, all the server firsts...yaaay. It all hit me like a ton a bricks. Why wasn't I enjoying the design of these dungeons as I did in EQ and DAoC? It felt radically different, it felt extremely linear. In EQ and DAoC, it wasn't you and your guild in there doing trash -> boss -> loot, next room, rinse and repeat. It was you and your guild AND 10 other guilds. On many occasions, there was no SET PATH. You went where you could and hoped you didn't get trained. It was always a new experience. It was exciting! My heart was always pounding. It felt MASSIVE.

BC came, got to 70, and had a great time after a few runs in all the new dungeons. The great times ran out fast as I once again found myself yearning for a wide open dungeon and stories that would last a lifetime. I finally left the game I had so much hope for and never looked back. Maybe Blizzard will give us "instance haters" the shocker of a lifetime in their next project. Maybe not. The search continues...