Originally posted by Daywolf

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Of course that is failed designed. For a server of TENS OF THOUSANDS of users, only like 10 or so can have that item. That is a HUGE waste of resources. Items should NOT be gated by such horrible drop rate but the difficulty of the encounter.

Not at all, he's talking about raids.

As for games having rare items, how is that  a waste of resources? All the devs do is rename the item and change it's properties a little, takes two minutes. Maybe everyone should get little gold stars for logging into a game? Little bows for everyone as everyone can just fire up an instance and get it all instantly. Rares are awesome!

Designing a good boss encounter is a lot of resources. Unique model for the boss, scripted events, the actual enviornment and enviromental effect.

It is a waste of resource that only 10 or so can fight the boss in a year.

Originally posted by Calind0r

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Luczifer

I remember EQ1 times (yeah, ya can now cry about badly designed game *wink*) when some yber-bosses spawned only once in week - means ya have only 52 times in year boss up (and not any time he dropped that item ya wanna).

 

Of course that is failed designed. For a server of TENS OF THOUSANDS of users, only like 10 or so can have that item. That is a HUGE waste of resources. Items should NOT be gated by such horrible drop rate but the difficulty of the encounter.

Spawning once a week does not make the boss weak. It makes the design stupid. Why create a boss and only let ONE group fight it once a week?

Just look at WOW. There are as few who has dropped from the Heroic LK. It is because the encounter is challenging, not because players have to wait WEEKS just to fight him. MUCH better game design.

 

Some of us like having competition and earning something meaningful, rather than having it handed to us on a silver platter like we're a 5 year old kid.

Then make the encounter HARD instead of RARE.

Look at Heroric Lich King. There are like less than 10 guild which have killed him over the world and so very few people who have the drops from him.

Is that hard enough for you?

It is silly to have a boss spawning every week.

Originally posted by AvatarBlade

In the case of a theme park mmo, I like instances. Yes, I want to have the same story, because, as far as I see it, theme park mmos are about the story. The main focus of the PvE is going through the story of the game, at least for me. On the other hand I agree that a sandbox game can do just fine without instances since everyone makes their own story there.

I see ya put equals sign between Theme park & PvE and sandbox & PvP. That's not true - even sandboxed EQ1 have story, and I can say story a lot better than many of.... (fill da blanks). Verant had developed very complex world with they geography and nature laws, races and their history, gods and religions, and epic tales and quests that marked something.

Is nowadays KTR-FedEx in massive some interesting story? Especially if they are overused - kill 10 lvl 1 rats, a bit later 10 lvl 10 rats, and again 10 lvl 30 rats, and then - wow! - 20 lvl 50 rats etc. etc. Ok ya can chance name, rats or oliphantz, core stays.

Overinstanced world took us here where we are - lost communities, lost good built guilds. Ya don't need any kind of organization - grab some ppl, run instance ninja that drops - and bye-bye kansas. As in EQ1 raids were for 72 ppl (yea, later they lowered it to 54) but still that needs ppl be organized, learn tactics and strategys. At every server were only little number of so-called top guilds but that was open for every talented player. Now we see thousands of guilds making raids of 12 ppl (sry, for me it's silly) :)

And again we don't talk about l33+e5t groups, l33+ism come with WoW. Older players can remember - there was competition, but never such kind of flame-wars and bitching like now. Now many ppl speak about KSers and how that was overwhelming in games - nope that's not true. Some KSers and ninjalooters rose sometimes but their names were so fast known to whole society (and GMs) that they were very fast elliminated from game. Community had self-cleaning possibility, much stronger than now.

Now ya can get boost from GMs easier for some juicy language towards some a..hole than those ruining other's game. Now for example LOTRO could stay quiet interesting game with story (and even instances don't break the fun). But.... after MoM came, started over-instancing and lootgrond prevale, and Mirkwood was last drop in chaliche (for me at least). R.I.P. LoTRO :)

No Luczifer, I didn't mean to imply themepark = pve and sandbox =pvp. I don't like overinstancing either. What I meant is I like the, let's call it main story of the theme park to be instanced so I can experience it, but by no means do I not agree to there also being world bosses you can fight for with others. What I meant by sandboxes not being so dependent on instancing is not that they don't have lore, its that they are not so much story driven, it's not so much about saving the world as it is about creating a world. Hope it makes sence. I also admit I haven't played the old mmos, so I might be wrong in some aspects.

Originally posted by SEANMCAD

Why? I do not undertand. I am not supporting them becuase I dont understand what the issue is at this time.

 To me instances aren't a bad thing in that they can be used and if executed right to me add some nice dimensions to the game.  The way WOW treats instances to me is ok, as far as having instanced dungeons and other special content ala LOTRO.  But on the opposite end of the scale you have instancing done like STO does it, simply horribly done.  It certainly gives the sense that there is no "world" there just small rooms to go into and that stands out more so in a game where the galaxy at large is the game world.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Daywolf

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Of course that is failed designed. For a server of TENS OF THOUSANDS of users, only like 10 or so can have that item. That is a HUGE waste of resources. Items should NOT be gated by such horrible drop rate but the difficulty of the encounter.

Not at all, he's talking about raids.

As for games having rare items, how is that  a waste of resources? All the devs do is rename the item and change it's properties a little, takes two minutes. Maybe everyone should get little gold stars for logging into a game? Little bows for everyone as everyone can just fire up an instance and get it all instantly. Rares are awesome!

Designing a good boss encounter is a lot of resources. Unique model for the boss, scripted events, the actual enviornment and enviromental effect.

It is a waste of resource that only 10 or so can fight the boss in a year.

We were talking about unique item drops, or rare whatever that adds to the player/group experience with a sense of uniqueness; the resulting value of non-repeating encounters where everyone takes it the same way. But you would be surprised how easy it is to churn out new models, art, scripts for mobs once you have the foundation down, it’s not that daunting.

Jaxsundane - here I agree with ya 120% :)

If game's storyline is built like it is mostly now, lastly my experience in LoTRO with it's Epic Books and Chapters...

Yea, when EVERYONE who wanna follow epic story and make all epic quests - that is impossible to imagine how in popular server ppl stay in queue by hundreds waiting they time to hit axe into forhead of that baddie. And then run fast into next queue :)

That remembers me some long ago time in Soviet land when most of ppl's time was spent standing in queues, be it for saausage or cheese, toilet paper or books oe even their Batya Lenin in his dungeon :P

And yes, those instances don't made me sick, I enjoyed Angmar and Carn Dum and Rift.

But introducing those radinace-run-instances and craft-instances etc. made me sick, and mirkwood's skirmishe-instances were cherry on top of cake. I refused to even turn in that skirmish paper, tho payed for 3 month I logged only very unfrequently to told with old friends, and after reading what brings Book 3 (guess what - no more than 4 new instances where 3 are only modified olds) I quit, with sadness over me cuz I'm oldtimer Tolkien fan and can forgive many things but that was a bit much...

Let's see what bring Bros Warners to LOTRO but I havn't big hopes after times and times seeing what big greedy companies do with games happened in they mouth (remember where turns EQ after SOE ruled over Verant etc). We'll see... :)

Originally posted by Daywolf

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Daywolf

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Of course that is failed designed. For a server of TENS OF THOUSANDS of users, only like 10 or so can have that item. That is a HUGE waste of resources. Items should NOT be gated by such horrible drop rate but the difficulty of the encounter.

Not at all, he's talking about raids.

As for games having rare items, how is that  a waste of resources? All the devs do is rename the item and change it's properties a little, takes two minutes. Maybe everyone should get little gold stars for logging into a game? Little bows for everyone as everyone can just fire up an instance and get it all instantly. Rares are awesome!

Designing a good boss encounter is a lot of resources. Unique model for the boss, scripted events, the actual enviornment and enviromental effect.

It is a waste of resource that only 10 or so can fight the boss in a year.

We were talking about unique item drops, or rare whatever that adds to the player/group experience with a sense of uniqueness; the resulting value of non-repeating encounters where everyone takes it the same way. But you would be surprised how easy it is to churn out new models, art, scripts for mobs once you have the foundation down, it’s not that daunting.

LOL .... i would love to see you TRY. You know, there is a little something call tuning & play balancing too, aside from art & models.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

 

 

LOL .... i would love to see you TRY. You know, there is a little something call tuning & play balancing too, aside from art & models.

Now you are talking about player skill/ability balancing, which is another matter. That is more of an issue for PvP amongst players. Mobs are independent, a few numbers you adjust in you base script/code. You really don’t “balance” mobs.

instances are bad, as they just intensity OCD-activity. Least if you have a bit more randomness, dynamicness with other people around- it makes it more interesting.

Originally posted by spades07

instances are bad, as they just intensity OCD-activity. Least if you have a bit more randomness, dynamicness with other people around- it makes it more interesting.

Yes, to an extent that would be a good use of instancing if it's not overused. So like dungeons that generate randomly like old Diablo. Down side is it's not possible as of yet, at least not something that would look like a designed and consistent dungeon. But that could be a worthy use of an instance that is random, if it's small and not done for every spot in the gameworld. But expect point A to look a lot like point B just like in Diablo. Then of course that could be done (if it could be done) w/o instancing. So at server up or at a set time/day/month, the whole dungeon could change as far as it's general layout. Sort of like Cube (movie).

The folks who dislike instances are the ones who either (a) used to be able to get a big guild together and "camp" a valuable mob in some old non-instanced game or (b) enjoy "gaming" a system by figuring out how to cause another player to lag and die.

They'll claim "immersion" is their concern, while they keep you away from a repeatedly spawning mob, or will use technological exploits to gain an in-game advantage over other players. This word "immersion": I do not think it means what they think it means. LOL.

If someone says they hate instances, it's always best to just walk away. Odds are, they're at their keyboard 18 hours a day trolling forums while they have some bot program advancing a character on some "game-able" MMO.

You know I love reading things and thinking what has been said in them trying to figure out just what some one is saying. True I could just read the words and go oh thats what they mean, but in this case there is more to it.

From what im reading i see a ton of people complaining about instances and raids...Boohoo they break the game...Ok first off. Its called a mmo...MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE. if you wanted something that wasnt like that we call that a plain old rpg...Go to FF ffs. Now being a veteran of many a mmo both pvp and pve I have this to say. Any monkey can pvp. Its not hard. Learn your class read up and your golden. Now pve on the other hand. Its a little more complex.

Every instance I have ever run through had a strat to beating it. See wow for examples. However most games its all about the tank and spank. BORING, but still we do it and do you know why?

CAUSE WE WANT BETTER GEAR. Seriously if your not happy you cant get that uber gear with out raiding or doing an instance or 50 then stfu find a new game. Seriously people seem to think because you pay for it things should be handed to you. Whats the fun in that. Look i was proud the day I got my first piece of Tier 1 in wow. And I was just as proud when I got my epic flying mount and so on. It shows that I put in the effort and worked hard on my character. Not to mention had no life.

So if you want a game where you get everything handed to you look up wow private servers and just get geared out. If you want to acctually be a part of something and build your self up then do the real thing....

Side note I no longer play wow but I will say they set the standard on how a game can and should be run...

Originally posted by slessman

I don't mind instances too much. I think it is fun to cast them when I find my character in dire straits. I think that it can be exceedingly helpful. But, I prefer to hold off on them because waiting for them to reload is bad in a high level area.

You sir win this thread!

Instances, when used correctly, are a valuable tool. No doubt about that. I believe the way EQ2 used instances to handle housing is a great way. Also, having a few dungeons instanced is also fine, but I prefer to play in open worlds. On PvP servers it is also nice to have some instances where one can be left alone for a little while.

The problem with instances is that everyone have a different opinion about how they should be implemented, and developers end up with quasi-solutions that no one likes, instead of staying true to their vision and accepting that a portion of the players will not like their product. LotRO's failure of a PvP system is probaly the best example. Fortunately, all I have to do is stay out of Ettenmoors, and I don't have to worry about it, and the PvE content is still good enough for me.

Originally posted by jonrd463

Seamless open overworld, instanced major dungeons, with a few open dungeons thrown in for variety = my dream game.

I'm almost the same way, except more open dungeons, a fewer instanced, a 3:2 ratio.  However, while normally against most instancing(even though I play DDO, and fully understand that it makes certain styles work), instancing is great for core/epic storylines, and certain more interesting dungeons, that require a bit more control to have the experience work.  Also, instancing is perfectly acceptable if there are GMs doing live content.  If there's a healthy helping of all or most of that stuff, then I'd switch the 3:2 ratio in favor of the instanced stuff, if they did it well.  I much prefer open world, myself.

Originally posted by Hatedbyall

A cool thing I would like to see Is a random instance maker ...where it always different everytime you enter. ...so it seems like a new place evertime you enter ...we can only dream

Diablo and other dungeon crawlers have that, I think there's actually an MMO that is specifically a dungeon crawler that does that, too.  Highly instanced, though, to the point of not feeling like an MMO, if I recall.  Otherwise, Hellgate London I though had a random dungeon maker.  It looks like that could happen.  The Wurm Online engine is capable of creating an entire continent from scratch, at random.  Star Trek Online has the Genesis program that is constantly creating planets, as well.

Originally posted by dlunas

Originally posted by Hatedbyall

A cool thing I would like to see Is a random instance maker ...where it always different everytime you enter. ...so it seems like a new place evertime you enter ...we can only dream

Diablo and other dungeon crawlers have that, I think there's actually an MMO that is specifically a dungeon crawler that does that, too.  Highly instanced, though, to the point of not feeling like an MMO, if I recall.  Otherwise, Hellgate London I though had a random dungeon maker.  It looks like that could happen.  The Wurm Online engine is capable of creating an entire continent from scratch, at random.  Star Trek Online has the Genesis program that is constantly creating planets, as well.

a single sentence that does significant damage to that argument imo...  tbh, random dungeon creation probably only really belongs in single player games..

Originally posted by PhelimReagh

The folks who dislike instances are the ones who either (a) used to be able to get a big guild together and "camp" a valuable mob in some old non-instanced game or (b) enjoy "gaming" a system by figuring out how to cause another player to lag and die.

 

They'll claim "immersion" is their concern, while they keep you away from a repeatedly spawning mob, or will use technological exploits to gain an in-game advantage over other players. This word "immersion": I do not think it means what they think it means. LOL.

 

If someone says they hate instances, it's always best to just walk away. Odds are, they're at their keyboard 18 hours a day trolling forums while they have some bot program advancing a character on some "game-able" MMO.

Why do people like you exist? What did the Golden Age of MMORPGs do to you to make you hate them? 

I don't like instances because I like immersion, and I like social worlds. All my best PvE memories come from pick up groups formed inside dungeons. Grabbing a random group of people and exploring. Sometimes dying, and having some other person come from another area in the dungeon and rezzing us. Or maybe, we've made it to the bottom of the dungeon, and we're killing some high level monsters, when a swarm of bleeders came out of the walls because somebody somewhere else attracted them with silver. I HATED bleeders, but that dungeon was my favorite and many other's due to the unpredictability, and social experiences that could happen there. The social element is huge, why play an MMO if you don't want to socialize? 

I once met a group of people in a pick up group in said dungeon, and we ended up playing together for the next 3 days straight. We all friended eachother, and 8 years later I still talk to 2 of them. 

Can't do that with instances. 

Bottom line though, instancing is not mmorpg, plain and simple. When you add instancing to the element of a game, it furthers the game away from being an actual mmorpg. I'm not worried about apartment/housing instancing, but gameplay is a serious issue. It ends the persistent world, replaces it with off-line/multi-player environments. That is just not mmorpg.
 
Of course that can also be cheated on, like when EQ2 made zones, instancing them to up to 100 players each (but usually were much less). That is just horrid design, cheating to skimp on the content, sad sad sad for a AAA publisher/developer. Or maybe a cross between bad design and hand holding nanny intervention.