If your gameplay is "instanced" or separated from the community by "phasing", you might as well be playing offline.  And if you are with a group, then okay, the group might as well be playing offline, maybe at a LAN party at someone's house.

MMO's are about many players sharing a world, and not meant to be about isolated segregated experiences.  The player who brags about having spent 10,000 gold on his instanced housing makes no more sense than someone bragging that they have an offline castle.  If you cannot see it, it does not exist (in the gameworld).  The player who goes into and comes out from an instanced dungeon, might as well have been logged off the whole time, as far as the community knows or cares.  The player who "phases" into some solo quest against an 80 Elite mob and uses some gimme item that is part of the quest chain and which zaps the creature into a non-elite mob that is easily defeated, has no more bragging rights than if he had been offline.

If it didn't happen in the greater shared gameworld, it didn't happen. 

"Instancing", "phasing", "linear story quests" and such all serve to isolate the player from the community and reduce the call load of customer service, since minimized player contact equates with minimized number of player complaints.  And I really think these "instancing" game design methods are more about the latter.  The whole "instancing" movement is really equivalent to sedating an entire psychiatric ward so the patients will all shut up and go to sleep.

"Instancing" and its forms have no place in great MMO's.  PERIOD.

ok are you trying to inform us that something is bad?

if so, please try again

I disagree whats wrong with having a little bit of offline gaming in an mmo? Instancing is needed in some cases to make quests a lot more fun they provide more varity than killing X quests this is best shown in Lord of the rings where some of the instances are unbelivly fun and could not be done on a live scale (mind the spelling typed this quick XD)

Yes, because we all know how realistic and cool it is it is to plow through a non-instanced dungeon for 2+ hours to finally reach the end boss, only to have some other party come in, kill you and you entire team, kill the boss, get the loot and then walk away laughing.  Thus forcing you and your team to respawn, start the whole dungeon over again, just to have the same thing occur right at the end.  Yes, this sounds like an AWESOME time.  Not.

Agree 10000% with the i hate instanced gameplay...instanced mmorpgs are not real mmorpgs

  agree wth the OP. I personally think that instances are the biggest carebear creater n all MMOs. Instances take away  what an MMO is all about. Massave amounts of people. I really missed the old days of EQ when you had to compete for mobs. That was real fun. Then instances came along and now the games seem really empty. I dont see why anyone but carebears would enjoy an instance zone. Instance zones are the worst thing to happen to MMOs.

Originally posted by Maligar

Yes, because we all know how realistic and cool it is it is to plow through a non-instanced dungeon for 2+ hours to finally reach the end boss, only to have some other party come in, kill you and you entire team, kill the boss, get the loot and then walk away laughing.  Thus forcing you and your team to respawn, start the whole dungeon over again, just to have the same thing occur right at the end.  Yes, this sounds like an AWESOME time.  Not.

So youd prefer to kill 100 orks for an epic quest rather than defend a castle for an hour fighting small bosses building up to a bigger boss? a lot of instances dont allow other teams in

"MMO's are about many players sharing a world, and not meant to be about isolated segregated experiences."

There are no lockable doors in a "shared world"?

Your logic is completely without merit.

This thread (and your recent posts in others on the same topic) is nothing more than you attempting to aggrandize your preferred playstyle by using flawed logic to "prove" that all other playstyles are invalid.

You have not succeeded.

Absolutely ridiculous. Instanced gameplay has its place in the MMO genre. I hate instances personally. But that's because I like a certain kind of gameplay, it's just my preference. There are plenty of people who appreciate instanced content and that in no way makes them any less of an MMO player. An MMO isn't about putting up with a server's worth of retards. Most of the time, you just want to play with your friends.

""Players don't want to 'play' with thousands of people, they want to play with a small group in the presence of thousands. It's like an old-school arcade. You don't want to play pinball with 10 people, but playing by yourself in a crowded room is a lot more fun. Players have more varied play-sessions. Some still play for hours on end, some want to come in for some quick fun. "

Jeffrey Steefel, The Lord of the Rings Online Executive Producer, Turbine via Massively.

---

"Instanced" gamplay is really "offline" gameplay

---

spoken by someone who has never dc'd during a raid and relogged to find a 300+ queue.

I absolutely agree with OP.  An MMO ceases to become an MMO if it's under a heavy influence of instancing.  You might as well play a 64 player map of BF2 or counterstike because you play with more people at a time and you don't pay a monthly fee.

 Just so I get this right?  You think a dungeon with every spawn camped and a waiting line queue of 6+ hrs or worse to kill the boss is a good time?  You sir have no life=)

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

"MMO's are about many players sharing a world, and not meant to be about isolated segregated experiences."

There are no lockable doors in a "shared world"?

Your logic is completely without merit.

This thread (and your recent posts in others on the same topic) is nothing more than you attempting to aggrandize your preferred playstyle by using flawed logic to "prove" that all other playstyles are invalid.

You have not succeeded.

 

Comparing locked doors to instances is illogical, Mr. Spock.

Originally posted by Ruyn

I absolutely agree with OP.  An MMO ceases to become an MMO if it's under a heavy influence of instancing.  You might as well play a 64 player map of BF2 or counterstike because you play with more people at a time and you don't pay a monthly fee.

That's an absurd comparison. Do I really need to point out he differences between a counterstrike match and running instanced dungeons in an MMO?

 I agree 100%

Everyone who disagrees are carebears, you know who you are.

Originally posted by pencilrick

If your gameplay is "instanced" or separated from the community by "phasing", you might as well be playing offline.  And if you are with a group, then okay, the group might as well be playing offline, maybe at a LAN party at someone's house.

MMO's are about many players sharing a world, and not meant to be about isolated segregated experiences.  The player who brags about having spent 10,000 gold on his instanced housing makes no more sense than someone bragging that they have an offline castle.  If you cannot see it, it does not exist (in the gameworld).  The player who goes into and comes out from an instanced dungeon, might as well have been logged off the whole time, as far as the community knows or cares.  The player who "phases" into some solo quest against an 80 Elite mob and uses some gimme item that is part of the quest chain and which zaps the creature into a non-elite mob that is easily defeated, has no more bragging rights than if he had been offline.

If it didn't happen in the greater shared gameworld, it didn't happen. 

"Instancing", "phasing", "linear story quests" and such all serve to isolate the player from the community and reduce the call load of customer service, since minimized player contact equates with minimized number of player complaints.  And I really think these "instancing" game design methods are more about the latter.  The whole "instancing" movement is really equivalent to sedating an entire psychiatric ward so the patients will all shut up and go to sleep.

"Instancing" and its forms have no place in great MMO's.  PERIOD.

Stupid rant that no developer is listening to.

If you don't like instancing, you don't have to play MMORPGs.

Originally posted by Einstein-DF

 I agree 100%

 

Everyone who disagrees are carebears, you know who you are.

I disagree 100%.

Everyone agrees are no-lifers that like to stand in line for 10 hours to spend 1 min to kill the boss, you know who you are.

Ok, so anyone saying anything about waiting hours for people to complete a dungeon is dumb. True, 90% of MMO's are that shallow to only have a single dungeon for a certain level range. But, a smart MMO would have a lot of dungeons for all level ranges. Not just a single one where everyone has to wait and get camped.

Instances are noob. A real MMO has a large world and is seamless. Before anyone starts to say anything about ohh dur what about a small world with lots of detail. Well, this is where it comes down to having a company with enough money to make something unique that works, than a lot of companies making the same damn thing that fails every time.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Einstein-DF

 I agree 100%

 

Everyone who disagrees are carebears, you know who you are.

 

I disagree 100%.

Everyone agrees are no-lifers that like to stand in line for 10 hours to spend 1 min to kill the boss, you know who you are.

I dont stand in any line for any hours. Get a group together, go in kill everyone (FFA pvp obviously) get out. If we loose its our own fault for sucking/not bringing enough manpower. 

No excuses 

Originally posted by jackeccs

Ok, so anyone saying anything about waiting hours for people to complete a dungeon is dumb. True, 90% of MMO's are that shallow to only have a single dungeon for a certain level range. But, a smart MMO would have a lot of dungeons for all level ranges. Not just a single one where everyone has to wait and get camped.

Instances are noob. A real MMO has a large world and is seamless. Before anyone starts to say anything about ohh dur what about a small world with lots of detail. Well, this is where it comes down to having a company with enough money to make something unique that works, than a lot of companies making the same damn thing that fails every time.

 

Stupid rant with no idea of how expensive content is. Even the richest company would not afford to build so many dungeons. There are a few THOUSAND people on each shard of a standard MMO at any time. Do you think they can build HUNDREDS of dungeons? You are dreaming. Not even blizzard can afford that.