Instances were made to solve the problem of players competing over certain PvE areas.  But is this really a good thing?

Coming from an EQ background, on a PvP server, I hate the idea of instances.  Part of the reason I like MMORPGs is disputes and arguments.  Is it really good to eliminate disputes within MMORPGs?  It seems to cheapen an MMORPG and make it fake.

If you model an MMORPG after the real world, there wouldn't be any instances.  If two people (IRL) want the same resource in a certain location, they would have to resolve that dispute in some way.  By introducing instances, these companies have eliminated disputes from MMORPGs.  

TBH, I really miss fighting over camps, or having people pull trains over groups to try & take over a camp.  By putting instances in, leveling is kind of boring anymore.  There is no disputes with other players, so MMORPGs are not fun anymore.  

The problem is really apparent if you come from a PvP server of a non-instanced MMORPG.  All of the PvP (Zek) servers in Everquest were only healthy because the PvE content caused disputes between the guilds that existed.  These servers were really fun, and players there cared about PvPing.

If you look at WoW's PvP servers, no one cares about the PvP because there is nothing to fight each other over.  You can't dispute instances, so why even have PvP servers?  It's a joke to have a PvP server and instanced content, because players won't fight each other.  The only way they will fight each other is if you put artificial rewards on PvP (like honor system), but by making instances more valuable in terms of gaining Honor, no one does World PvP anymore.  Plus putting artificial rewards on PvP makes the game have a meaningless PvP system.

Anyway, I think instances have been a massive failure for the PvP community.  Players who participate in instanced PvP are doing MMORPGs a disservice because these companies are going to continue with their failure PvP systems that are meaningless and not fun.  

If you have a PvP server, nothing on that server should be put into an instance, because you can't have meaningful PvP with instances in the game.

I would disagree. Im not saying you dont have a point, but well done instances are a nice thing to have, and you really cant entirely concentrate on the PvE if you know a fight with a boss can be broken up by KSers at any time. We had an uninstanced dungeon in PWI which became infamous as griefers would use it to gank lowbies trying to complete quests. Sure, the fights that broke out between those of us trying to help them and the guys camping it were fun, but the low levels we couldnt keep alive through AoE and it really got annoying after a while. The game has a system that rewards you with xp for helping them so we werent in it just out of the kindness of our hearts... All wannabe PKers would zerg over you just to up their counts. 

As a PvPer who does enjoy PvE, my solution would be to work out instances in such a way others could get in but wouldnt find it easy to catch up. Im all for open world PvP, but we really need to come up with a better solution than antiPKers to deal with griefers and KSers. Give the carebears a fighting chance. Instancing could become a part of it if done smartly, several routes, for instance, with varying difficulty levels and having elites with better AI that could follow you and strike at the best time. Imagine an instance wont open until theres at least a group at every entrance, then its both a race and a fight. The shortest way has the toughest mobs. Open world dungeons do sometimes work, but being trapped in there waiting for the boss to spawn and relying on guildies and allies to hold numerical advantage is something of a drag. To me the best PvP is done with a friend or two and a PUG, not relying on whatever mood your guildies are in to run a dungeon so you can gear up. Guild you should only call for the big fights, the ones theyll thank you for doing.

So, to me instancing can be an amazing tool if used right, as it could balance situations that devolve into whos got the body count. Imagine running away from a large group into an instance only a few can follow in. Or using them to set up an ambush against your KoS. The strategic potential of instancing is yet to be exploited. WAR scenarios, although flawed, were also a step in the right direction. And its easier for developers to do.

Originally posted by Caleveira

I would disagree. Im not saying you dont have a point, but well done instances are a nice thing to have, and you really cant entirely concentrate on the PvE if you know a fight with a boss can be broken up by KSers at any time. We had an uninstanced dungeon in PWI which became infamous as griefers would use it to gank lowbies trying to complete quests. Sure, the fights that broke out between those of us trying to help them and the guys camping it were fun, but the low levels we couldnt keep alive through AoE and it really got annoying after a while. The game has a system that rewards you with xp for helping them so we werent in it just out of the kindness of our hearts... All wannabe PKers would zerg over you just to up their counts. 

As a PvPer who does enjoy PvE, my solution would be to work out instances in such a way others could get in but wouldnt find it easy to catch up. Im all for open world PvP, but we really need to come up with a better solution than antiPKers to deal with griefers and KSers. Give the carebears a fighting chance. Instancing could become a part of it if done smartly, several routes, for instance, with varying difficulty levels and having elites with better AI that could follow you and strike at the best time. Imagine an instance wont open until theres at least a group at every entrance, then its both a race and a fight. The shortest way has the toughest mobs. Open world dungeons do sometimes work, but being trapped in there waiting for the boss to spawn and relying on guildies and allies to hold numerical advantage is something of a drag. To me the best PvP is done with a friend or two and a PUG, not relying on whatever mood your guildies are in to run a dungeon so you can gear up. Guild you should only call for the big fights, the ones theyll thank you for doing.

So, to me instancing can be an amazing tool if used right, as it could balance situations that devolve into whos got the body count. Imagine running away from a large group into an instance only a few can follow in. Or using them to set up an ambush against your KoS. The strategic potential of instancing is yet to be exploited. WAR scenarios, although flawed, were also a step in the right direction. And its easier for developers to do.

What is wrong with ganking lowbies?  Isn't that PvP?  Why should levels protectpeople from an integral part of an MMORPG?  Low levels should level in fear of a high level coming by and killing them, that just makes the game more interesting.  I remember in Everquest trying to level on Sullon Zek, certain teams controlled certain zones and the other teams could hurt each other by killing low levels on the other team & taking over their zones.  

I don't understand what is wrong with that.  Sure, they are at a disadvantage, but doesn't open PvP with no rules just encourage more PvP?  If high levels were to come in and gank low levels, then your team would be able to come in and protect the low levels as well.  It really encourages teamwork & socializing with other players. 

Imagine being a newbie, someone who is really low level on a PvP server, and having higher levels on another team attacking you + taking over your leveling area.  When those low levels ask their own team for help, and are helped by their own team, with no artificial rewards.. that is a great thing.  That person that was helped will want to level up and help their own team fight against the other teams.

Open PvP without instancing really builds unity among the teams, it's something you don't get in games like WoW.  Because in WoW, everything is basically instanced, and you can level without being attacked, no one cares if you get randomly PKed in a zone.  On top of that, it's not like the players lose anything in PvP, so your own team will care even less if you get killed by someone.  The view in WoW is that PvP should take place in instances, so no one does World PvP anymore (because World PvP is meaningless in instance games like WoW)

So I don't have a problem with griefers.. even if I was the person being griefed I don't have a problem with them.  Because if you were getting griefed, you would probably just want to get revenge on that person eventually.  It builds a healthy PvP system imo.

Now I understand not everyone can handle griefing, but that's why they should have multiple servers with different rulesets.  It's just hard to comprehend how games like WoW can call their instanced servers PvP servers when there is no healthy PvP on those servers because of the instancing system.  Their game would have been playable had they built a server without instances, with open PvP and no battlegrounds.  It would have been a real PvP server that is driven by server politics rather than artificial rewards that encourage farming other players for points (mindlessly.)

In EQ, KSing wasn't that huge of an issue.  If a guild showed up at an NPC first, then they basically have a time limit to kill it in.  It means that raids require more skill and require getting right.  If you take too long in a certain zone, another guild might show up and try to kill it.  But what is wrong with that?  It's not like the guild that was there first deserves the NPC because they were there first.  If another guild puts up a fight over an NPC, isn't that a healthy PvP system?

There were a lot of big fights over important NPCs in EQ, 50-100 people from each team fighting each other.  There is just nothing like that in any new MMORPG, because people don't have a good reason to fight each other in newer MMORPGs.

The only reason I ever did World PvP in WoW was out of sheer boredom.  There was never any meaning behind World PvP in WoW, because there was never any conflict between the teams.  Teams can't fight over anything in WoW, because they each have their own copy of everything. 

Instances are a massive failure on PvP servers.  To label a WoW server as "PvP" is a joke and Blizzard should be ashamed for labeling blue servers as red.  WoW is just a PvE game with no PvP system to speak of.  Not even their Battlegrounds or Arenas are PvP to people like me, because where I'm from PvP was actually meaningful and not based on artificial point systems where you farm each other.  

I recently read this on Wikipedia:

Instances were first proposed by Richard Garriott in the late 1990s as a way to solve a set of related problems which had become obvious in Ultima Online. 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". When there are 2,000 and more players all playing the same game, clearly not everyone can be the hero. The problem of everyone wanting to kill the same monster and gain the best treasure became obvious in the game EverQuest, where several groups of players would compete and sometimes harass each other in the same dungeon, in order to get to the monsters dropping valuable items. The creation of instances largely solves this set of problems, leaving only travelling to and from the dungeon as a potential risk in player versus player environments. There are few examples of boss camping and kill stealing in World of Warcraft - because a copy of the dungeon (instance) is always created on demand each player or party.

Richard Garriott, the same guy who was responsible for the massive failure of Tabula Rasa.  And people wonder why MMORPGs have been going downhill for the past 10 years?  When idiotic ideas from this guy are used in every new MMORPG to date?

"Leaving only travelling to and from dungeons as a potential risk in PvP environments."  What a joke that is... And once people are in those dungeons they are magically protected from PvP, what a fucking joke...  Whoever thought PvP and instancing should be used together is an idiot

Some people want world simulation.  Other people want good combat; good fights.

Good combat is insanely rare in world PVP.  The fights in non-instanced PVP are incredibly one-sided the majority of the time. This generates bad fights.

You don't watch a war movie about a military brigade killing a bunch of defenseless civilians (there are movies like that, but they're not watched because of their interesting combat.)  You watch the war movies where both sides are armed to the teeth, and the outcome is intentionally kept vague (even though the protagonists usually win.)  That's good conflict.

When I PVP I want good conflict.  Good fights.  Fights that could go either way.  The best part is good games are designed so that your decisions impact the outcome. This immerses you in the experience, as there's a strong connection between how well you play and how well you do.

I think that overall the average player has more fun with the strong feedback loop of "play well to win" than in the weaker feedback loop where winning is dictated primarily through non-skill factors.  Yeah, there's plenty of players out there who value world simulation and resource competition more than they value interesting fights.  But overall, more players prefer the tighter gameplay of instanced PVP.

Originally posted by Ginkeq

Richard Garriott, the same guy who was responsible for the massive failure of Tabula Rasa.  And people wonder why MMORPGs have been going downhill for the past 10 years?  When idiotic ideas from this guy are used in every new MMORPG to date?

Comments like this are completely irrational.

Yes, we get it.  You don't like certain traits of modern MMORPGs.  But you're the minority -- while you claim MMORPGs have gone downhill, more players than ever are playing them (by a lot.)  And they're playing the instanced MMORPGs.  Which makes Garriott's comment rather accurate.

Not everything Garriott came up with was a bad idea. Yea, he lost it, but once upon a time he did a lot for MMOs. As for WOWs PvP no need to sell me on the idea, i completely agree. Axehilt makes a good point tho, PvP games that become nothing but gankfests and leveling races get old fast. Im not for having limits set on PvP so much as finding mechanics that encourage a competitive environment. Good PvP is about subtle design.

+1 I'm basically in the same situation that you are in ATM. I grew up playing Everquest on TZ, UO, and Runescape. I played Everquest for the majority of my teenage years roughly 4 years. It seems MMOs and games in general have changed their standards to something that accomidates more of the casual gamer.

It seems like players in general don't want a challenge when they play a game. People seem to be playing MMOs more because of their addictive nature than for fun. Some of the most fun times I've ever had in a RPG was fighting a guild for hours over a world spawn.

Just an example, in Everquest when my guild killed the end boss in ToV for the first time after over a months worth of attempts. This was while fighting with 3 other guilds for zone control. Upon the dragons death guild chat exploded people were happy as hell typing random happy profanity's and congratulations to every one. We had just beat the final boss of the expansion, it was something to be proud of.

6 years later: Wotlk just came out 2 weeks ago, I've just cleared Nax 25 with 24 other people it took about 10 hours worth of attempts to clear the whole thing, the bosses are dead we collect our loot. There was no since of accomplishment, pride, anything. We killed bosses and got loot. Vent chat was dead quite, guild chat was dead quiet. "Send a tell for item X" There's nothing fun or enjoyable about that.

I love the rush you get from an open PvP environment knowing you might stumble upon an enemy to kill at any time, or that one might find and engage you while hunting/farming. A lot of people feel that if they put time into a game they should be rewarded. I believe that if you overcame a difficult obstacle via a PvP/PvE mix that you should be rewarded. When you get an item or high end spell / trade skill item, you should feel like it was an accomplishment. If a 7 year old with no knowledge of the game can get the be geared on par with the best of the best whats the point in playing.

In regards to PvE, any old school EQ1 players remember the adrenaline rush when they zoned into PoH or PoG the first time? They just don't make games as exciting and challenging as they used to.

Currently I'm waiting for TERA to come out. It has quite a few of the old L2 Devs working on the project, another game with hugely successful meaningful world PvP. Until it or another MMO comes out that suits my tastes I guess I'll be waiting.

You don't play a Massively Multiplayer Game to actually have to deal with other people. That's insane, and even rediculous to even think of such a thing. How crazy are you to think that we'll actually have to resolve disputes with other people in a game made to support thousands of people simultaneously. What a bunch of crap, and I'm totally disappointed in you bringing up such a thing.

The huge success of games like Dark Ages of Camelot say otherwise.  Most people don't want to be fed pvp, i.e. ganked by some tard that couldn't win a stand up/straight up fight if the opponent had both hands tied behind their back.  I noticed someone made a comment on this so here goes.  Yes, MMORPGs are about playing with a lot of other people online in a game.  Does that mean that the 75% of the people on that game, that want to be a part of the community, want to deal with the 25% retard population who insist on being rude to the extent of being an online stalker, of sorts?  No, but unfortunately, there are not many games out there that allow people to level up in relative safety so they can play on a level playing field with the jerk offs that like to go jump people that are less than 1/10th their level for kicks and grins.  I think it goes without saying that most of the games of this nature, predominantly Korean based, fly for about 6 months to a year in Region 1 then die off.  The retards run all the people off that would provide a good community with their |33+ 5ki||z and crappy attitude toward the community and when all that is left are the hardcore gamers, who hunt the arseholes down till they leave the server, what is left of the community can not survive.  RPKing of this type also stops the inflow of new players.  Who wants to join a game, try to learn how things go, but have to spend 90% of their playing time dodging the max levels running around in the starter areas.  Time for people to grow up.  Your in game rights extend only to the line where you trample on some other person's  in game rights.  If it is f2p/cash shop, you can bet you will see a ton of the arsehole  personality.  They are generally socially deprived and lower income or no income, in the case of the 14 year old quake fragfest one, so they flock to the next new f2p/cashshop.  In most P2P games, the people who are in game are generally a good community, after about 6 months, when all the bad weeds are weeded out, making comments on Xnewgame's forums about how they pwned everything and are now tired, though the reality is the 20% left after server wide hunts and gm bans due to hacking or cheating in some way are looking for a hole to hide in.

There is nothing wrong with instanced pvp at if the game offers world pvp as well. Sorry you lost a ton of bgs , try nagrand or wintergrasp. Maybe try some questing areas and looks for it, hell maybe get off your lazy ass and go raid a city. 

This WoW bashing is just a way for the leet sauce kids to drown their frustrations from choosing alliance instead of horde. Blizzard did see your pains and realized it probably will be the only decent game for the next 5-10 years so they allowed a free side change. That was a smooth move because as most of you complainers mature through puberty and become men thus allowing you the option to play horde.

Sorry kids but WoW isn't a bad game its too easy for some gamers and I am one of them.

seriously? slaughtering a bunch of pvers/RPrs s is more funny than fighting a pvp focused guilds in the other 90% of the world space? 

How it differs from the "easy ph4t 1007" mentality? how hard is to give up something so little that means a lot for other ppl?

Wow this whole thread got ruined by people that have horrible reading comprehension.  This thread got warped from world PvP is needed in MMOs to some warped mess of people complaining about gankers.  Put a level cap or level cap on PKing like EQ or put a stat reduce debuff like WAR but please let us have some meaningful world PvP.  

There'll always be PvP servers to play on.

I don't believe that mission based PvE instances are detrimental to the PvP experience, they're just detrimental to griefers and gankers by affording the people in them immunity from outside interference.

This immunity seems to allow for greater flexibility in the design of PvE encounters. My experience of ORB (outside raid boss) fights in a PvP enabled environment has always been of very simplistic, tank-and-spank fights.

As an example, I can't imagine a fight mechanic like the Heigan dance (WoW, Naxxramas) in an open-world environment since a single enemy could wipe the entire raid with one cast of an AOE root spell.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Ginkeq

Richard Garriott, the same guy who was responsible for the massive failure of Tabula Rasa.  And people wonder why MMORPGs have been going downhill for the past 10 years?  When idiotic ideas from this guy are used in every new MMORPG to date?

 

Comments like this are completely irrational.

Yes, we get it.  You don't like certain traits of modern MMORPGs.  But you're the minority -- while you claim MMORPGs have gone downhill, more players than ever are playing them (by a lot.)  And they're playing the instanced MMORPGs.  Which makes Garriott's comment rather accurate.

I was going to comment on the OP's post.  Not sure I want to though.  After reading his post, it's like he has lost all touch with reality.  I did get a good laugh from his opening post though.  Something that will keep me laughing for the next 10 hours of work.

Nah, Ilvaldyr.  Ginkeq is correct: anything that lets players accumulate rewards in a safe place works against the resource competition type of gameplay he's talking about.

But the question is whether resource competition or instanced gameplay is more important.  For me, instanced PVE and instanced PVP are both insanely better than the junk you find out in the game world (which has to be cheap and shallow to even function in an MMO world.)

And honestly, resource competition can still happen even with instances.

In world PVP two blacksmiths found an ore node.  They fought, and the victor is now 3 ore closer to his crafted upgrade.

In WOW BGs two players fought, and the victor is now 3 Marks of Honor closer to his PVP upgrade.

And that's only a shallow implementation of what could potentially be quite a bit deeper (such as how WAR's scenarios feed into the overall war.)

Instanced PvP = Better quality PvP -> actual fighting instead of ganking, zerging, griefing and the avoidance of the previous three.

Instanced PvE = Better quality PvE -> Like Axehilt said, open world quests are cheap, shallow, pointless and boring.

Every game I've played, if the game had instanced PvE content, that content was the best content in the game. The devs clearly put much effort in them. That is why people like instances. I am not an idealist or purist like many in these forums - I just see things as they are. Sure it is against the ideals of MMOs but this is how it is.

Originally posted by Ginkeq

What is wrong with ganking lowbies?  Isn't that PvP?  Why should levels protectpeople from an integral part of an MMORPG? 

Because almost no one is going to pay 15.00/month to be someone else's bitch, not when there are plenty of other choices. This is why everyone talks about "open" or "world" PVP in the past tense -- because it's not economically viable anymore outside of a small niche. EVE probably has that market completely sewn up; I don't see Darkfall getting anywhere near EVE's subs, and none of the other contenders seem very viable. It is very unlikely you will ever see a primarily PVE game (like original EQ) offering open PVP again, except on isolated servers.

Instances exist even in pure PVE games because I'm not going to spend 15/month to watch someone else kill the monsters. I have better things to do then spend hours using /shout to scream out what spawn my group has 'claimed' or perform 'camp checks' like we used to do back in EQ.

I personally love non-twitch, turn-based, multi-character single player CRPGs, like the Wizardry series. (Played 'em from 1 through 8 as they came out, which should give you an idea how decrepit I am.) But not a lot of people do anymore, not enough to justify any kind of reasonable development costs. It's annoying, but I accept that the market has changed and that's that. It would be pointless and stupid for me to delude myself into believing there's a huge market for my style of gameplay, and the companies are just too dumb to notice -- or that if only the Ignorant Sheeple could somehow be FORCED to try the games I like, they'd suddenly realize how great they are. Nope. The time for my style of CRPG -- and your style of PVP -- is gone. So it goes.

You (or the OP, can't remember if you're him or not, sorry) claimed to like "conflict". Most people don't. Most people play to relax, not to gain more stress. Fighting over spawns, dealing with ninja looters, dealing with assholes who lead trains over you, etc... this is not most people's idea of "fun". When EQ and pre-Trammel UO were pretty much the only way for anyone to get their MMORPG fix, people put up with it. Now they don't have to, and they don't, and any game which insisted that they should would bleed subscribers like mad. You'll note that the "hardcore" PVP servers people talk about so lovingly have shut down, one by one, because eventually, even the dimmest and slowest person clues in to this very interesting fact: In any such server, only the top 10% of so of the player base gets to actually experience the content, and 90% of the players aren't in the top 10%. There's only so long that bottom 90% can keep telling themselves that they'll eventually be in the top 10%, because the math says that will never, ever, be.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Nah, Ilvaldyr.  Ginkeq is correct: anything that lets players accumulate rewards in a safe place works against the resource competition type of gameplay he's talking about.

But the question is whether resource competition or instanced gameplay is more important.  For me, instanced PVE and instanced PVP are both insanely better than the junk you find out in the game world (which has to be cheap and shallow to even function in an MMO world.)

And honestly, resource competition can still happen even with instances.

In world PVP two blacksmiths found an ore node.  They fought, and the victor is now 3 ore closer to his crafted upgrade.

In WOW BGs two players fought, and the victor is now 3 Marks of Honor closer to his PVP upgrade.

And that's only a shallow implementation of what could potentially be quite a bit deeper (such as how WAR's scenarios feed into the overall war.)

Resource competition can't happen with instances...  So what if people fight over an ore node?  How often does that even happen?  And when you kill the opponent, they don't care much because they don't lose anything.  Have fun fighting the same idiot at every ore node, because there is no death penalty in WoW.

Want to fight over NPCs or spawn areas in WoW?  Good luck.  Kill some idiot, and they will just come back and watch you in ghost form, then spawn when you are half HP.  Real good PvP there.  In good games like EQ, you come back without any gear, so you can't have idiot newbies pulling cheap shit like that.  Plus there was exp loss, so if a player sucks they will leave you alone actually.

WoW BGs are meaningless.  That kind of cheap PvP doesn't even compare to what was in Everquest.  Who cares about Marks of Honor? They are trivial to get.  And lol, as if BGs are fun at all.  You just get your own guild to do BGs and you get 3 marks every time.  It's just farming newbies over and over for artificial rewards.  It's not real PvP.

Instances are garbage

Originally posted by Ginkeq

Originally posted by Axehilt

Nah, Ilvaldyr.  Ginkeq is correct: anything that lets players accumulate rewards in a safe place works against the resource competition type of gameplay he's talking about.

But the question is whether resource competition or instanced gameplay is more important.  For me, instanced PVE and instanced PVP are both insanely better than the junk you find out in the game world (which has to be cheap and shallow to even function in an MMO world.)

And honestly, resource competition can still happen even with instances.

In world PVP two blacksmiths found an ore node.  They fought, and the victor is now 3 ore closer to his crafted upgrade.

In WOW BGs two players fought, and the victor is now 3 Marks of Honor closer to his PVP upgrade.

And that's only a shallow implementation of what could potentially be quite a bit deeper (such as how WAR's scenarios feed into the overall war.)

 

Resource competition can't happen with instances...  So what if people fight over an ore node?  How often does that even happen?  And when you kill the opponent, they don't care much because they don't lose anything.  Have fun fighting the same idiot at every ore node, because there is no death penalty in WoW.

Want to fight over NPCs or spawn areas in WoW?  Good luck.  Kill some idiot, and they will just come back and watch you in ghost form, then spawn when you are half HP.  Real good PvP there.  In good games like EQ, you come back without any gear, so you can't have idiot newbies pulling cheap shit like that.  Plus there was exp loss, so if a player sucks they will leave you alone actually.

WoW BGs are meaningless.  That kind of cheap PvP doesn't even compare to what was in Everquest.  Who cares about Marks of Honor? They are trivial to get.  And lol, as if BGs are fun at all.  You just get your own guild to do BGs and you get 3 marks every time.  It's just farming newbies over and over for artificial rewards.  It's not real PvP.

Instances are garbage

I could probably type a 10 page paper on how wrong you are in just about every aspect of you little rant

 Of course - this should not be a debate even

Instances = PVE 

PVP open world

Thats why the real PVP games like Darkfall and Mortal Online are open world, the devs know REAL PVPers will not take an instanced game. 

Another reason why I consider AoC, War WoW as pure PVE games, I wont even go into the other reasons.